


Villainy Wears Many Masks

by irisbleufic, Kadorienne



Category: Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-12-29
Updated: 2000-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 144,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadorienne/pseuds/Kadorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story has everything: magic, detection, quarrels, romance, an appearance by the Horseman, and a record-breaking swoon count.  Alternating viewpoints: Kadorienne wrote the scenes from Ichabod's POV, and  irisbleufic wrote Katrina's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I hurried toward the sound of the alarm bell as soon as I heard it, but Constables Green and Witherspoon still arrived before me. Several gawkers were gathering about in front of the house, a respectable address, a somewhat expensive residence. I elbowed through the crowd. "Stand aside!" I ordered in the most authoritative voice I could summon, and several of the onlookers responded to the sight of my uniform by grudgingly giving a few inches of space.

Inside, I had no difficulty finding the room in question. All I had to do was follow the footprints of blood. One set going in each direction up and down the hall, made by the same shoes. I steeled myself and followed them.

When I found the room the prints led to, I stopped in the doorway. Blood was _everywhere_. There was a large pool of blood covering almost the entire floor, drops of blood on all the furniture, and a man lying on his back at its center.

I stood a moment, trying to breathe. Once during an investigation I fainted before I had been on the scene a full minute. After that, no one listened to anything I said. Not that they do anyway. Green and Witherspoon smirked at me. I turned my gaze to them for a moment, averting my eyes from the body. They were shackling a struggling man in his forties, a well-dressed gentleman who I think would have been considered handsome.

"I had nothing to do with it!" the gentleman was protesting. "I received a message from him to call on him, and I found him like this! It was I who summoned you! Would I have done that had I been the murderer?"

I examined him. His words and manner were convincing enough, though I know too well that is not proof. Witherspoon grinned at me.

"You'll be proud of us, Constable Crane. We did some deducing!"

"Really." I doubt Witherspoon could deduce that he should come in out of the rain. "Do tell."

Now that the gentleman was shackled, Witherspoon released him, allowing Green to hold him, and picked up a pistol from a table, handing it to me. "What do you think we found right here at the crime scene, conveniently engraved with the murderer's name?"

"Convenient indeed." Already I was convinced that my fellows had the wrong man. I took the gun and examined it. It was a fine piece, expensive, and indeed engraved with its owners name and a date in elaborate calligraphy. _August St. James III, July 22, 1795_.

"Well send the coffin cart for the corpse. Have fun looking at the blood and guts and entrails till then," Green jeered as they started dragging August St. James toward the door.

"Wait!"

Both of them stopped irritably. I turned my gaze back to the victim, trying to forget Green's last words. My stomach demanded that I leave at once. Instead, I walked over to the corpse. At least no one had moved it. There were no footprints close to it. After scrutinizing the ground around the victim, I stepped gingerly to the side of the body, getting blood on my boots, and bent carefully to examine the wound.

The wound was a huge gash in the stomach. I gingerly lifted the tatters of the man's shirt and moved them aside, hoping the shaking of my hands would not destroy the evidence. My hands always insist upon shaking when I most need them steady. I often wish I could amputate them and replace them with a steadier pair.

When I saw the interior of the wound, my stomach rebelled against me and I had to turn away. My constitution seems determined to thwart me from my purpose. The High Constable and the Burgomaster would be most pleased to learn what devoted allies they have in my traitorous hands and stomach. Katrina is always after me to eat more. If she knew how much difficulty my digestion already gives me when I work.

When I was able to speak, I explained, "The wound was clearly made by some sort of stabbing weapon, a large one, probably with several sharp edges. This was no ordinary knife, but some sort of spiked club, driven through the mans stomach with considerable force." I paused, letting them take this in. "Release Mr. St. James."

"Constable Crane, he's the murderer!" Green said with a scowl.

"Is he? Then where is the blood that must have covered the murderers clothes?"

They all glanced around. Blood was everywhere, as if it had sprayed all over the room, but St. James' fine clothes were immaculate.

"Obviously he was standing far enough away when he shot him not to get blood on him," Witherspoon retorted.

"Shot him? Witherspoon, you have been a constable long enough to know a gunshot wound when you see one. Is that like any you have ever seen? Examine the wound, _as I did_, unless you lack the stomach for it."

Green looked at Witherspoon expectantly. Reluctantly he went over and peered at the wound. It humiliates me that I have not been able to conceal my weak stomach from my fellow constables, but it has one benefit: none of them are willing to be outdone by me, so I never have difficulty inducing them to examine evidence, however grisly. Not that they heed it once they have seen it.

"The bullet must have exploded. That happens sometimes."

"_Exploded?_ Of all the-" I stopped myself. Why trouble to explain to them? Instead I came to stand before St. James, who was shaking all over. I felt for the man. "Mr. St. James, would you please tell me what happened here?"

Stammering slightly, he said, "This afternoon I received a message from Gabriel - his name is Gabriel Erickson- to call this evening. I arrived to find the door slightly ajar. I called out, but no one answered, so I walked inside, and found him like this. I at once ran out, looking for a constable." With that, he glared at Witherspoon.

"And your gun?"

"My wife had it engraved for me on my birthday five years ago."

"I mean, how did it get here?"

"I have no idea. Generally I keep it locked in my study. I did not even know it was missing."

Green snorted at that. I ignored him. "What was your relationship to the deceased?"

"We are not very close friends, but certainly friendly. We have had him to dinner a few times. We have known each other since youth, when we served together in the Revolution. I had no reason to wish him dead!"

I nodded curtly. "I can see plainly that you are innocent, and I shall prove it," I said. I kept my tone firm, to reassure him. I had no doubt I could prove my case, but it was not certain that anyone would heed it once I did.

Green laughed. "Don't put too much stock in Crane and his toys, St. James. Come on, Witherspoon." They dragged Mr. St. James out, adding three new sets of red prints to the hall carpet.

As the front door opened, I could hear the coffin cart. Quickly I turned back to the body to learn what I could before it was removed. The victim was lying on his back, his arms spread at his side. His hands were empty; no weapon with which he might have tried to defend himself, no stray hairs or any other signs that he had struggled against the murderer. Evidently he was attacked from the front, and had been in a standing position. No furniture had been knocked over, no sign of a struggle. Erickson was taken completely by surprise. It seemed unlikely anyone could have gotten in and attacked him from the front without his knowledge, so I deduced that the murderer must be someone known to him, someone he would have trusted sufficiently to allow into his home. There was nothing in sight that could have made the horrible wound that had killed him.

I stood in front of him, more or less where the murderer must have stood, and then turned and looked behind me. There was no interruption of the bloodstains on the furniture or wall, no sign that a man had been standing in their way. I frowned, wondering how this could be.

The undertakers men lumbered in, heedless of what was under their feet. They placed a coffin on the bloody floor and lifted the body briskly. The wound made a sound as it shifted, and more blood poured out. I left the room as quickly as I could, leaving more bloody footprints in the hall.

 

*

 

I had seen the girl before, but something seemed to weigh upon her so heavily that day that I could not help but stare. She examined the thread at the weaver's booth with absent fingers, her elfin profile bent at a sorrowful angle. Her hair was even paler than mine, the shade of winter sunlight at dawn. She was no taller than I and slighter in stature.

I watched the girl move through the stalls collecting meager purchases, realizing that she could not be more than nineteen. Although it is hard to miss an individual so fair, it was not her shining braids that had first caught my attention, but the bauble around her neck. I had never before seen a talisman carved in the shape of a hand hollowed out where the palm should be. Though I had never looked her straight in the eye, I could tell that she carried herself with an aloof, startled bearing. I was always careful to look away before she turned in my direction, but I could not shake the feeling that each time I did, her eyes fastened as steadily upon me as mine upon her.

"She's a sad one, isn't she?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Young Masbath's voice. He, too, had been studying the girl.

"Yes, David, she is," I agreed, still shaken. "She is here almost every time that I come."

"You can't help but notice her," David observed. "Her hair is even lighter than yours, Katrina!"

"Indeed. But more so than noticing her, I feel sorry for her," I confided. "Did you mark that, while her purchases are few, she is still buying enough for two people? Do you suppose she is a single mother? Or an orphan struggling to care for a younger sibling? Perhaps she lives with an ailing mother or father," I sighed. "Even though it is not my concern, I wish that I knew the cause of her grief. Does that sound strange to you?"

"Not in the least, actually," David said with a shy smile. "You have the kindest heart I've ever known."

"And you the most persevering," I said with quiet gratitude, placing a hand on David's shoulder. "You never lose faith. I thank you for standing up for me that day in Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod might have left without both of us if your words had not lingered in his mind and prompted him to take a closer look at my spell book!"

"I take no such credit, but you're welcome," David murmured, a faint blush tinting his white cheeks. "Ah, look there!" he exclaimed suddenly. "The girl... she's leaving. She looks frightened, Katrina."

I followed the discreet pointing of David's finger. The girl had exited the row of stalls opposite us, moving at a brisk, alarmed pace. Her eyes darted nervously from side to side, and every so often, she glanced over her shoulder. I felt a chill: she toyed with the bauble at her throat with agitated slim fingers.

"Do you think she's in danger?" David asked in a whisper. "She's acting like someone's following her."

David was right. I scanned the area she had been shopping and searched the crowd around her. I waited until the girl rounded a corner onto the next block to pull David after me in the direction that she had gone.

"I do not like the look of it," I said warily. "Let's follow her for a little while to make sure she is all right."

"Katrina.... What if she thinks _we're_ the ones following her?" David asked hesitantly.

"She does not," I said grimly. "Are we threatening enough to inspire that kind of fear in a young woman's eyes? I have seen... and felt that kind of terror. So have you. She fears for her life, David."

"You're right."

Following the girl unseen was a difficult task. Nervous and bird-like, she not only glanced over her shoulder frequently, but pivoted her head in all directions- even _up_. The intensity of the panic that her eyes radiated was astounding, even from a distance over which their color was indeterminate.

David exhaled in amazement, "My, but she can run! She's absolutely _frantic_."

"That makes the whole thing twice as disturbing," I said under my breath, narrowly evading a puddle in my haste. "Wait! She is slowing. David, stop for a moment."

I drew him under the awning of a nearby milliner's. We held our breaths as the girl approached the shadowy doorway of a tenement complex. She rapped hard against the dusty window.

"Chris.... Chris! Let me in," she cried in a silvery echo of a voice. A hazy shape taller than the girl appeared on the other side of the door, its masculine reply unintelligible. The door opened and a reassuring arm shepherded the girl inside. I heard the pair's voices rise in an edgy duet as the door closed behind them. David was frowning, too puzzled to comment.

"Maybe that was her husband," he commented at length. "At least she has someone to take care of her."

"Apparently," I answered slowly, prompted to frown myself even though I should have been relieved. I said guardedly, "There must be pickpockets around here. I should ask Ichabod if anyone patrols this area. Let's be off. I am not keen on falling prey to a thief."

The walk home was a silent, contemplative one, each of us lost in our own thoughts. My sack of groceries felt like it was full of bricks. Although I was grateful for the girl's safety, I could not shake the feeling that whatever she had feared was following her was invisible to all eyes but her own.

_In a modern city full of thousands of people_, I wondered, _do such horrors truly exist?  
_

 

*

 

The next day, even though the High Constable ignored the evidence I had discovered, I continued with my investigation. I began with routine inquiries as to the character of August St. James. He had no criminal record, no history of violence, and there was not known to be any bad feeling between him and the victim, nor did he stand to benefit in any way from Erickson's death. If ever I feel the need to frame anyone for a crime, I hope I shall not do such a sloppy job. Not that its sloppiness seemed to be making any difference; St. James was imprisoned just as securely as if his framer had done a masterful job.

After these inquiries, I called on the family of the deceased at the home of his brother Edward. This was apparently a somewhat well-off family; the house was not lavish, but quite comfortable, and in a respectable neighborhood. Edward's wife, sister, brother-in-law and mother were all there, all in black. They all looked grave as I was shown in, but somehow serene in spite of their grief.

"Pardon my intrusion at this difficult time," I said to the gathered family in their parlour, "but if we are to obtain justice for Gabriel Erickson, it is essential that I ask you some questions."

"By all means, Constable," Edward said, inviting me to sit down. "Anything we can do to help."

"First, let me ask: Did your brother have any enemies? Any rivals in business, perhaps?"

"Colonel Dorn," his sister replied with a slight laugh. I looked at her, startled that she could muster even such a small chuckle the day after her brother's death.

"I don't know that he would be considered an enemy," Edward said, "but a rival, certainly."

"A rival in what way?"

"Oh, they served together in the Revolution. My brother was decorated a few times, and won a command Dorn had wanted. Dorn was not a Colonel then, of course, but not many stayed in the army after the war was over, so I suppose there has been little competition since."

"In the Revolution? So this Colonel Dorn and your brother both served with August St. James then?"

"Of course," Edward said tranquilly.

"Do any of you know of anyone else who might have wished your brother ill?"

"Well, obviously Mr. St. James did," Edward said with resigned sadness.

I drew myself up. "Mr. St. James has been arrested, but he is not convicted yet. There is considerable evidence that he is innocent. I must know if there are any other likely suspects."

The senior Mrs. Erickson spoke up. "Do not trouble yourself, Constable Crane. You have arrested the right man."

It was not her words, but the calm certainty with which she said them that surprised me. "You believe Mr. St. James to be guilty?"

"We know he is."

"Madame, at the crime scene I discovered considerable physical evidence which would eliminate him as a suspect. What makes you think he is guilty?"

It was Edward who answered, explaining why the entire family was so oddly at peace at this tragic time.

"Because we spoke to Gabriel's spirit last night with the help of a pair of mediums we visit quite often. During the séance, he assured us that Mr. St. James was the murderer."

 

*

 

I was gravely distracted as I sliced onions to garnish the roast that would serve as our dinner that night. David had retired to his room to study the texts that I was determined to put him through, just as my own father had so thoroughly seen to my own education despite the protests of society against learned women.

The only sound in the kitchen of our new home on Karrigan Square was the soft licking of the flames that I had coaxed to life in the stove. That and the slicing of the knife guided by my unsteady hand- _chop, chop, chop. _I could not erase the pale, frightened girl's features from my memory. Nor the unusual shape of her necklace. I shivered, dropping the knife carelessly in mid-slice. I had pictured my own hand missing its center.

I completed the gaffe by knocking the knife and a few onion rings onto the floor. I had jumped a foot at the sound of the front door. I heard the soft clangor of Ichabod's alarm bell as he tossed it onto the sofa. I hurriedly stooped to pick up the knife and the onions. Ichabod tossing objects around meant that he was as disconcerted as I was. And I hated to seem incompetent in his eyes. For aught I knew, he thought I had been served on silver platters my entire life and had never set foot in a kitchen. I did not clean the mess up in time: he stepped into the kitchen just as I snatched up the knife with trembling fingers.

"Ichabod!" I greeted him nervously, scattering the onions every which way on the cutting board as I forced my hands to release them. "You- You startled me," I added, forcing a laugh. Never in my life had I felt lost for words, nor had I been failed by recovery. Ichabod raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Indeed I have," he replied with a half-smile that conveyed more puzzlement than amusement. I wiped my hands hastily on a nearby towel as he approached. He embraced me with concern, confusion flashing in his dark eyes at the unusual timidity of my kiss.

"You are trembling, Katrina," Ichabod said tensely.

"Yes.... Yes, I am," I replied with embarrassment. "I am sorry. I'll cut a new onion"

"That will... not be necessary, my love," he said slowly, tilting my chin upward. I found that I could not look at him. My cheeks burned with shame. _What kind of a wife am I, startled so by the entry of my own husband?  
_

"But it is," I insisted. "If it had been a servant, I would have been quick to-"

"You are not a servant," Ichabod said, his voice strangely weary and affectionate at the same time. "Will you tell me what is amiss? Or shall I force it from you by way of onion torture?" He was awkwardly trying to lace humor into an awkward situation. I molded my incompliant lips into a smile.

"Onion torture?" I asked mischievously.

"I shall make you cut another, and another, and another.... until you cannot stand the stinging in your eyes one moment longer and will be forced to tell me what ails you."

"Perhaps I should do the same to you," I said guardedly.

"I do not catch your meaning," he said stiffly.

"I know my husband well enough to recognize when he is even more deeply bothered than I am myself!"

Ichabod gave an exasperated sigh, his mask of forced apathy fading away. "I have been assigned to a most difficult case, Katrina," he said.

"How so?"

"A murder, naturally," Ichabod continued, fighting a rush of emotion that shocked as much as relieved me. "A man by the name of Gabriel Erickson has been.... Good God, Katrina, I would endure another Widow Winship before laying eyes on another scene such as the one I saw today!"

"That gruesome?" I asked gently.

"Gutted," Ichabod replied succinctly. "And to make matters worse, I believe that Green and Witherspoon have arrested the wrong man- simply because he was present at the crime scene, because he was the one to report it! That was no gunshot wound. And I have reason to believe that this man... August St. James... is no murderer, except-" Ichabod paused, indignant fury contorting his brow.

"Except what?"

"Except that the victim's family claim that they have spoken with his spirit by way of some mediums, the alleged spirit informing them that St. James is indeed the killer!"

I lowered my eyes, for it was my turn to feel indignant. "Suppose they have," I challenged quietly. "Need I remind you that ghosts and demons are as real as you and I? You cannot deny what happened to us in Sleepy Hollow. Suppose that they have contacted Gabriel?"

"But a _séance, _Katrina! Mediums! I have only ever known them to be ruthless charlatans bent upon swindling anyone hapless enough to believe in their trickery. Mere drama is the psychic's art, my dear, and nothing more. What the Erickson's claim is ludicrous!"

"Not ludicrous enough," I said shortly, turning back to the onions. Ichabod pressed at my shoulder fretfully, clearly regretting the things he had said.

"I did not mean to upset you. However, I cannot condone such a blatant hoax."

"If you are so certain it is a hoax," I replied, feeling the delicious chill of a dare creeping up my spine, "then promise me that you will investigate these mediums in person."

"Absolutely not!"

"How can you be sure, then? Where is the Constable Crane who leaves no stone unturned, no tree trunk unexplored?" I retaliated. "Did they give you the mediums' address?"

"Yes," Ichabod admitted grudgingly. "304 McRaker's Alley," he said with an audible shudder of disgust. "A terrible place, Katrina. A nest of thieves and ne'er-do-wells."

"Oh," I said in a small voice, my stomach falling as I cut another onion ring. "You mean where there's an open-air market every third day."

"How did you know?" Ichabod asked sharply.

"Well, I've heard it mentioned in passing-"

"In passing by in person, I see," Ichabod scolded, for he had noticed how guiltily I had regarded the onions. "Katrina, I beseech you, stay away from there. The crime rate there has been one of the city's highest, and still it rises yearly."

"So the mediums live in this neighborhood," I said, crestfallen, "and therefore you will not even take the chance of paying them a visit."

Ichabod groaned in captive protest. I was looking him straight in the eye as pitifully as I could.

"Who am I to refuse the Pickety Witch?" Ichabod whispered in defeat. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I must discover the fraud before I can proceed."

"That's my husband," I cooed in satisfaction, kissing his cheek. "And you're taking me with you," I added.

"To that, I _must_ say absolutely not!"

"No, you must not," I said slyly. "Because I know exactly how to handle this. You're going to schedule a séance for tomorrow night. You've been desperate to contact your dearly departed Aunt Hildreth ever since the will turned up missing and your brother Wilbur insists that everything should go to him."

"Katrina!" Ichabod protested, appalled. "I have neither an aunt nor a brother!"

"Exactly."

"Ah." Ichabod conceded hesitantly, eyes narrowing as he identified my reasoning. "Use one fraud to uproot another. Why didn't anyone warn me that my bride is as brilliant as she is beautiful?" I leaned gratefully into his much relaxed embrace.

_Or to uproot the truth, _I added silently, forgetting the onions in favor of Ichabod's kiss on account.

 

*

 

Perhaps I should not have relented and allowed Katrina to accompany me to the séance, but when she turned melting wide brown eyes on me with her lips slightly parted, I knew I was beaten. Perhaps when we have been married for fifty years, I shall have developed some resistance to that look.

So the next evening we set out for the mediums' lair, with David trailing behind us. When David heard what we were planning, he petitioned most urgently to be allowed to accompany us. He explained that he wanted to watch how I went about making investigations in the city; the boy has often expressed his ambition to be a constable and detective. It is flattering, but I am inclined to think that one day he will choose another life. This current fancy is likely simply gratitude towards me for avenging his father's murder.

In spite of the reasons David gave for wanting to attend the séance, a wistfulness in his eyes made me suspect that there was something else as well. I suspect that in the back of his mind, he nursed a hope, probably scarcely admitted to himself, that these mediums might be able to put him in touch with his own lost loved ones. Such hopes are best nipped in the bud. The nipping may hurt, but not so much as the crushing disappointment the boy would no doubt experience if he began to put stock in such confidence artists. A hard lesson for a hard world. So I allowed him to come and see their trickery for himself. There are times when disillusionment is a friend.

Katrina glanced about in astonishment as we neared the address we had been given. "We were on this road just the day before yesterday."

I looked at her sharply. "I thought you only went to the market." Her eyes flickered guiltily. "Well?" I pressed.

She sighed and confessed. "In the marketplace, I saw a girl perhaps eighteen years old, and she looked terribly frightened."

"Is that what troubled you so last night? You certainly did a clever job of distracting me from finding out. I had forgotten till this moment."

She nodded sheepishly. "I was worried for her, so I followed her till I saw that she was safely home."

"Katrina." I shook my head. "Your tender heart is something I treasure about you, but I wish you would not let it lead you to endanger yourself. This is one of the worst neighborhoods in New York. It is not a place any man would want his wife venturing into."

A sorrowful look crossed her lovely face. "And that poor girl has to make this walk every day. She is younger than I, Ichabod, and no taller, and much slighter. A man's voice answered her when she reached her home  I wonder why he doesn't"

"Katrina! Were you listening to me at all? I do not want you wandering around areas like this alone!"

"David was with me," she offered.

I looked at him. Seeing my gaze  I suppose I must have looked rather irate, and with good reason  the boy lowered his eyes.

"That is a little better," I allowed, resolving to instruct David to discourage Katrina from following impulses to head into dubious areas of town. "But really, my love, you have spent your life in a tiny hamlet where you knew everybody. You have not yet learned how dangerous a city this size can be."

She turned pleading brown eyes on me. "But if you could have seen her, Ichabod! She was terrified!"

David spoke up nervously. "She truly was, sir. Had you seen her, you would have followed as well."

I wanted to tear my hair. "Katrina, spare some of that compassion for me! It would kill me if anything were to happen to you."

She sighed. "Very well, Ichabod." And with that I had to be satisfied. A moment later someone half a block away caught her eye. "Ah. When I was here, I meant to ask you if this area was patrolled."

Following her glance, I saw Constable Witherspoon coming towards us. He caught sight of us. His gaze took quick note of me before moving to the angel at my side.

Witherspoon's eyes bulged when he saw Katrina. I tucked her little hand more securely in the crook of my elbow. He looked at me as if he had never seen me before, and then his eyes were drawn irresistibly back to Katrina. We all stopped as we drew near each other.

He stammered, "C-Constable Crane. And this is?"

Ever since I returned from Sleepy Hollow last winter with a golden band on my fourth finger, my fellow constables have been pestering me with impertinent questions, most of which I am very glad Katrina cannot hear. But my colleagues and I have never socialized together, having little sympathy with each other, and so few of them have ever seen her. This was the first time that Witherspoon was to enjoy that privilege.

"Lady Crane. May I present Constable Witherspoon? Good day." I could feel his eyes on us as we walked on. It was petty of me, perhaps, but it was a satisfying moment.

We found the address, and Katrina studied the shabby building, shocked. Her fingers tightened on my arm. "This is where the girl who we followed went!"

I was not happy to hear this. Evidently this girl charlatan already had a wedge into my wife's tender heart. That would make the evenings work a bit more difficult. But I pressed on. "Perhaps we can find out what she was afraid of, then," I replied, leading her to the door and knocking.

A young man opened the door. He was about eighteen, with light hair and rather arresting violet eyes and a slight build, about as slight as my own. He glanced behind us cautiously for a moment before his eyes rested on us. _Doubtless watching for creditors or constables,_ I thought sourly.

"Are you Mr. Crane?"

"None other," I answered brusquely.

"I am Christopher Magellan." The lad stood aside for us to enter. I glanced around at the foyer and then the sitting room he pointed out. The furniture and rugs were shabby and ancient, but I had to admit the room was neat and clean. They did the best they could with what they had.

Standing beside the table was a girl of the same age, even fairer than her brother or Katrina, with the same shifting violet eyes. She must have been the girl Katrina saw. Katrina examined her anxiously, and Isobel met her glance silently and evenly. David was also studying her. I had to admit that it was difficult to think of these two, hardly more than children, as ruthless swindlers. But then, such people must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. It is how they do their foul work.

"This is my sister Isobel Magellan," the lad introduced us.

"Is this the room where you hold the seances?" I demanded. He nodded. "Then I suppose you will not mind if I look it over?"

"A skeptic," he said with a weary smile. I had to admit, his act was good. Most charlatans would have acted offended. I shrugged. "Why did you come if you do not believe?"

Glancing at Katrina, I decided to tell a lie that was close to the truth. "My wife insisted that we try this. We have already tried everything else. My aunt died a few months ago, and her will is nowhere to be found. My brother is insisting that everything is his by right. Mrs. Crane thought that, if we could contact my aunt..."

He nodded. "Of course. Please sit down."

"First I would rather have a look around, if you do not mind."

I expected him to argue, to take umbrage, but again he nodded, looking both weary and amused. "Look all you like."

That is what I would expect to hear from a genuine medium, I thought reluctantly. _That is, if such a thing existed._ I surveyed the room. There was a round table at the center with a cloth of dark velvet. The cloth had been expensive at one time, but was worn and threadbare now. I looked under the table. There was nothing there, not even dust or cobwebs. I lifted the cloth. Nothing. Nothing under the chairs around the table, which were simple straight-backed ones. I looked to the other furniture.

What caught my attention first was the small bookshelf. It held a few cheap trinkets, all rather amateurish attempts at exoticism. There was a paperweight in the shape of a pyramid, painted gold, a stuffed bat, a dull knife shaped like a dagger with a ram's head on the hilt, and similar brick-a-brack. Doubtless such knick-knacks impress those dullardly enough to be taken in by conjurors tricks such as mediums play.

I examined the bookshelf very carefully, but found no hidden strings or other such trumpery. In fact, there was a thin layer of dust on everything on the shelf. Nothing on it had been moved in some time, except for the books on the bottom shelf, all about the spirit world. One of them, I noticed, was _A Compendium of Spells, Charms and Devices of the Spirit World_. Involuntarily, my hand went to my vest pocket, where a copy of that same book always rests, a copy with a bullet hole at its center. The coincidence made me uneasy.

There were a couple of pictures as well. No strings, no openings hidden behind them. Moving them to ascertain this revealed clean spaces on the wall in the exact sizes of the frames. These pictures had been there for some time. Both of them were third-rate landscapes that had probably been hung by a previous tenant.

I went over the entire room and found nothing. No hidden openings, no secret doors, no strings. Nothing suspicious at all. The least sign of fakery would have been a welcome relief. I looked warily about the room. Absurd speculation that perhaps these mountebanks were true mediums made me shiver.

Katrina was standing by the table, watching me with raised eyebrows.

The challenge in her look made my blood rise and my jitters fade  for the moment, at least. I had been looking forward to unveiling their trickery before her.

"I have not found anything amiss," I admitted grudgingly. "Not yet."

"Then shall we begin?" Christopher asked patiently. His patronizing air irritated me further, but I remained intent on my purpose.

"Yes, let's." I took Katrina's hand. She was looking entirely too satisfied for my liking. David's intent concentration on my methods was more pleasing. Seeing my irritation, she let the challenging smile drop from her lips and returned to examining the girl medium. I hated to fail in her presence, but then, the evening was not yet over. I faced Christopher as calmly as I could while my stomach began to knot.

 

 

*

 

I could not tear my eyes away from Isobel for the life of me!

While Ichabod had done his skeptic's examination of their humble residence, I had struggled with masking my shock. I had not expected to see the girl from the marketplace again so soon- let alone under such circumstances! Her own startled look as we walked through their door had told me the same.

I knew without a doubt that she and her brother Christopher were twins. They had eyes such as I had never seen, eyes that I would not have expected in visages so fair. Those deep, smoky orbs of indigo and violet stared warily at me in double. How alike they were, and yet how different. Christopher was clearly the braver of the two, undoubtedly the young man who had met her at the door. But one look at Isobel told me that beneath her quiet, unnerving edginess lay abilities that I dared not imagine. The pendant swayed restlessly at her throat. I swallowed. I had no choice but to do something that I had not done in a long time. She and I remained unmoving as Christopher showed Ichabod and David to their seats at the velvet covered table.

I struck with deadly aim. My eyes narrowed and locked; Isobel's widened in surprise.

_ I was worried about you. I had wondered when I would finally meet you.  
_

And... I you, she replied timidly, her lips set in a line as tight and unassuming as my own.

_I didn't mean to frighten you the other day.  
_

You didn't.

I frowned as Christopher beckoned me to a seat beside Ichabod. _Then who did?  
_

I do not know! Please, please, do not ask me that.....

Why?

You will see why soon enough, Isobel asserted, eyes shifting as she took a seat opposite me and beside her brother. She spoke aloud for the first time since our arrival.

"According to the message you sent confirming your appointment, Mr. Crane," she said in the same timid, silvery tones I had heard before, "you are here to settle the matter of a missing will." Her gentle eyes grew serious.

"Yes," Ichabod gulped, "that is correct." He was nervous already. I pressed his arm comfortingly. I knew that he was not prepared for what could happen. I could not exactly say that I was, either. My assurance lay in the accessibility of Isobel's thoughts.

"Your brother claims that all possessions are his by right?"

"Yes. That it what I told you," Ichabod responded, his voice showing the first traces of annoyance.

Isobel sighed gently. "It is my duty to make sure that I have the information correct, Mr. Crane. Errors have proved quite fatal."

Ichabod blanched at her matter-of-fact statement. "F-Fatal?" he stammered.

"Fatal to the success of the summons," Isobel replied firmly, "yes. Clear details are imperative. What is the deceased's name?"

"Deceased?" Ichabod said faintly. I elbowed him in warning. He was forgetting his lines.

"Your aunt," Christopher said flatly.

"Hildreth," Ichabod choked as though he could not stand the taste of the word.

I anticipated Isobel's next question with ease. "His brother's name is Wilbur," I said smoothly. Her eyes shone with quiet, amazed thanks.

"And the will is missing?" Isobel added meekly. "No trace of it whatsoever? No chance that your brother has merely taken it?"

Ichabod glared almost without meaning to. "That is why I have come to you, is it not?"

Isobel shrank, and Christopher cut in defensively, "She's making sure you've done everything in your power to find it by rational means. Understand that our services are generally a last resort or are used only in the most dire circumstances."

_Like an unsolved murder, _I thought.

Isobel looked at me, startled. _What?  
_

Good God! I cloaked my inner musings quickly.

"I... understand," Ichabod replied to Christopher hesitantly.

"Very well," Christopher said.

Isobel was still glancing at me fearfully when she said, "Then I would ask that you please remain as silent and unmoving as you can."

Ichabod glanced at me sidelong. He was terrified inside. Nothing had prepared him for this. This was not recorded in anything that he had ever read. It was not like any hoax that he had ever dealt with. David, too, was sitting stock-still with his hands clenched in his lap, eyes wide with fear... and anticipation, I noted. I took Ichabod's hand and looked at Isobel kindly.

"We are ready," I assured them on his behalf.

"Give me your hands, Mr. Crane," Christopher said.

Ichabod looked up helplessly. "I beg your pardon?"

"Give me your hands," repeated Isobel's brother, drawing a small packet of something from his vest pocket.

"I would rather not," Ichabod said, struggling to keep his voice down an octave.

"Give him your hands," I whispered through clenched teeth. "This is nothing like what we expected. We cannot back out now. I refuse to let us." And it was then that I, the believer, knew that what I was seeing for certain was real. I had expected it to be, but the _kind_ of real was beyond the reaches of my imagination. I had no explanation, only instinct. And that was lost on my husband.

Ichabod placed his trembling hands, scarred palms up, on the velvet cloth in front of Christopher. The young man nodded gravely and opened the packet carefully, even reverently. His eyes took on the fevered cast of his sister's.

David's eyes shone with plaintive hope as Christopher drew a generous pinch of a fine, coarse gray powder from the packet. Judging by its deep purplish cast not unlike the twins' eyes, I realized it was merely ashes blended either with ground lapis or crushed violet petals. I wagered it was violets, considering the twins' frugal existence. I held my breath in awe as Christopher began to murmur words that I could place as neither Latin nor Greek- nor any other classical or romance language, for that matter. I was certain then that their magic was one so ancient that its precepts were unknown even to me. Christopher spread some of the ash mixture on each of Ichabod's palms, chanting as he rubbed it in. I shivered when Christopher finally took his hands away. Ichabod's palms were completely darkened out. The illusion was chilling: it was as though the velvet cloth was showing through where Ichabod's flesh had once been. My eyes flew to Isobel's pendant. She nodded at me imperceptibly as she met my husband's gaze and slowly raised he own slim hands before him.

"Press your palms to mine," she instructed in a strangely distant voice, "and do not resist when I lace my fingers with yours. Understood?"

"Why would I want to res-"

"I pray you, listen to me."

Ichabod did as he was told. His terrified eyes never left mine as he raised his hands to meet Isobel's. She interlocked hers firmly with his, palm to palm.

"Be still now. You must not say a word," Isobel breathed in a whisper. Her eyes were closing slowly and her breath was growing shallow. As she tightened her grip on his hands, Ichabod made a pained sound n his throat. And I knew I had no choice. I focused my attention on Ichabod completely. His thoughts were as open and vulnerable as a book dropped in the street.

His mind reeled backward in a succession of images, not words: a hand beckoning from the trunk of a tree, a dizzying chase through a haunted wood, blood flying and reaching like a shapeless hand for his pale cheek- and then a cave and a veiled crone shackled to a table. He equated Isobel's grip with that long-ago encounter with my stepmother's sister. Isobel was not causing him pain at all. She had understood that Ichabod uniquely would resist.

Satisfied with the source of his consternation, I slowly became aware of the changes around us. The curtains no longer swayed; the breeze had died. The room had grown undeniably dark even though it was the middle of the afternoon. No sounds drifted up from the street outside.

And Isobel was barely breathing, her head sagging forward against her half of the arm-bridge created by she and Ichabod. Her head jerked up suddenly with a cry of pain, her hands convulsing but refusing to go. Ichabod cried out, too. David looked like he had stopped breathing a long time ago, frozen in horrified fascination.

"_Why have you come here?_" Isobel cried in a voice not entirely her own, a strong, clear lament. "_Your blood runs in the veins of no other living soul, and your parents had no siblings!_"

Christopher's eyes flared in fury. "Let go of my sister!" he commanded Ichabod.

"I cannot!" Ichabod shouted, wildly trying to free himself from Isobel's grasp. "You must tell her to let go of me!"

Christopher was disquieted at this revelation. Isobel was breathing in quiet sobs, struggling to separate her hands from my husband's. She could not extricate herself either.

"_You have no brother and you have no aunt! Leave us in peace, foolish son of Levi!_"

"NO!" Ichabod cried, and at that very moment, Isobel released his hands. They flew apart, hurtled backward by the force of what had flowed between them. Christopher miserably helped Isobel to stand. Unlike Ichabod's, her chair had tipped. She rose shakily, her eyes clear and troubled. The spell was broken; whatever it was that had possessed her had departed.

"Why did you lie to us?" she demanded in a soft but harsh voice. She held up her palms. Thin, haphazard rows of inch-long needle-like slashes had torn her flesh, mingling blood with ashes. Ichabod held up his own hands and moaned at the sight of Isobel's blood on his sooty palms.

"The spirits do not like to be trifled with," Christopher said furiously. "They punish not the client, but the channel when such a trick is pulled!"

"I did not know," Ichabod stammered. "Oh, God. Oh, God, forgive me."

"Why have you come?" Isobel asked again. "Why did you lie about your family? The will?"

"I have a confession to make. I have come here to investigate you as I would any other supposed hoax. That is my ruse, and I am now twice the fool. I am a constable. I have been assigned to a murder case, and the victim's family told me that they consulted you. I have reason to believe that the wrong suspect was arrested, but they insisted that you- that Gabriel- that"

"Confirmed the man's identity," Christopher finished for him. "Gabriel did, in fact. You mean to say that you believe we are false practitioners?"

Ichabod stared dazedly at the slashes on Isobel's palms. "I do not know what I believe," he said bleakly.

Instinctively, I stood and took Isobel's hands. "I will tend to these, if you like," I offered shakily. "I know a poultice-"

"That is all right, but no," Isobel insisted. "Thank you."

David rose to his feet, eyes wide and saddened. I believe that most of us had forgotten his presence.

"Is this the fatal result that you spoke of?" Ichabod asked Isobel apologetically.

"No," she said quietly. "That result did not transpire, which is why I am amazed. Under any normal circumstances, such a wild claim as yours would have angered the spirits into silence. In other words, there would have been no séance! But the forces came. That means one of you came here with honest intent."

"It was not me," I admitted with shame. "This entire farce was my idea. I wanted to show my husband that such things are best not doubted. In other words, to use falsehood to prove your authenticity. I never dreamed such a thing would happen. The blame is mine."

Isobel did not answer. Her fathomless eyes were fixed kindly on David. She moved away from Christopher and leaned so that she was eye to eye with the boy. Isobel placed her fingertips on his tear stained cheeks.

"They love you very much," she whispered. "They are with you every waking moment. I saw the pride in their eyes. You are a good son."

David sobbed. Isobel put her arms around him as best she could, frustrated that her hands could not soothe or calm. Christopher was not sure whether to focus his glare on Ichabod or on me.

"We had better go," I said, defeated. "Thank you all the same."

"You are welcome," Isobel said almost inaudibly as she released David to me. Her eyes, unlike her brother's, did not reflect pools of hate. They were calm. She had helped someone no matter what else had happened during the séance. And that was all that mattered to her, I realized. I, too, had tears running down my cheeks.

As we turned to go, Isobel hovered behind us, following uncertainly. I was the last to step across the threshold. She stopped me, glancing nervously over her shoulder to make sure Christopher was tidying the mess.

"Please come back, Lady Crane. I believe there is more to be said," she whispered furtively. "My brother is as hot-headed as your husband is skeptical. Good day to you." I accepted her kiss on the cheek and kissed hers in return.

Once alone in the tenement hall, Ichabod leaned against the wall in exhaustion. He looked at me with apologetic misery.

"I should have listened to you," he said. "They are not a hoax."

"How do you know?" I asked cautiously. I was ever wary of what Ichabod claimed to believe.

He took a ragged breath. "Levi was my father's name, Katrina."

 

*

 

The three of us said little on the way home, all of us in mild shock from the evening's events. A few blocks away from the Magellans' tenement, a trivial thought struck me. "Did you pay them, Katrina?" She nodded mutely, intent on her own thoughts. "Good. It is the least we could do."

When we reached Karrigan Square, I retreated to my laboratory, not to experiment, but to ponder.

We moved into the house on Karrigan Square within a month of coming to New York. My bachelor flat was unfit for her habitation, even had there been room for the three of us in it. I left the choice of the house and its furnishings entirely to her. She sacrificed enough by marrying a penniless constable when she could have had any man she chose. I could only thank Fate that she had the wherewithal to live as she deserved to. The entire house was furnished and decorated to her refined taste, with one exception: the laboratory. As soon as I saw the large, high-ceilinged attic, I had claimed it. She had offered to have it painted and otherwise made presentable, but the truth is that after the humble rooms I have lived in all my life, there are times when I feel more at home among bare walls and exposed rafters than in the tasteful comfort of the rest of our house.

After the séance, I needed the reassurance of my artifacts of sense and reason. I sat unmoving for some time, gazing at my scientific instruments and jars of chemicals and shelves of books. Now and then my eyes would stray to my scarred palms, still faintly gray in spite of the scrubbing I gave them as soon as we reached home.

The truth is that all my life, however hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, in my heart I have known that magic exists. Was my own mother not a white witch? I tried to persuade myself that the things I saw her do were childish fancies, but I always knew the truth. And, may God forgive me, I always ran from that truth. Katrina guessed rightly during our first conversation, when she asked why I was afraid of magic. I was afraid of it, and so I told myself it did not exist, until I came face to face with it in Sleepy Hollow.

For months after leaving Sleepy Hollow, I imagined ghosts and goblins in every shadow, but every murderer I have encountered since the Headless Horseman has been blessedly corporeal. I had hoped that magic was going to leave me alone now. But it seems that it is my fate.

The girl's stricken face and bleeding palms kept appearing in my mind. I do my utmost to use my brain to deal with every situation rationally, and still I make blunders like this. My foolishness nearly left Katrina at the Horseman's mercy. A fine man of reason I am. How many others will have to suffer for my gaffes?

And added to the fright and bafflement of the séance was humiliation. If ghosts must insist upon existing, it seems the least they could do is refrain from making a fool of me before Katrina.

It was late when I heard the soft knock on the door. Since we moved into this house and I made my wishes about this room known, she has not made any attempt to enter my sanctuary. "Come!" I said, lifting my head from my hand.

She entered cautiously, watching me with enormous eyes. She sat on one of the sturdy, battered wooden chairs left by the previous owners, along with an ancient divan over which I always drape a clean blanket. We simply looked at each other for a time.

After a long moment, she glanced around at the room, at the books and equipment. "It must be easy not to believe in magic in a room like this," she said thoughtfully.

"It was at one time." I shook my head. "Why is it that the only truth I have ever wished to hide from is so insistent on tracking me down?"

"Perhaps because Fate knows about your devotion to truth and will accept no half measures." She added, "You know, you would never say anything like that in front of anyone else."

"No, I would not."

"You are so different when we are alone. Ever since our first private conversation. Different in many ways," she added, a very faint smile twitching the corners of her lovely mouth. My face warmed slightly. I took her hand, lacing my fingers with hers.

"It is only with you that I can truly be myself. With you, I never feel any need to hide. Anything."

I did not expect her to truly understand this, but her sorrowful eyes showed clearly that she did. "What a blessing that must be!" She seemed about to say more, but then, with the air of one who had changed her course, she murmured, "I thank God that I can give you that, my love."

My hand tightened on hers before I drew her into an embrace. She grew up with doting parents and has been surrounded with admirers ever since blooming into womanhood. Where she came by this loneliness so like mine I shall never understand, but it breaks my heart. Every so often I catch a glimpse of it, elusive as a unicorn.

"It was my fault," she said at length. "It was my idea, and I should know better than to trifle with such things even if you do not."

I considered before replying. "Katrina, I have put three or four dozen so-called mediums out of business. Never before have I encountered any with enough magic to fill a thimble." I was trying to tell her that her husband was not such a fool as he seemed that night.

She nodded. Another silence followed, until she broke it with a question. "How long has your father been dead?"

I shivered, remembering how cold I had felt when the medium had said that vicious tyrant's name. Son of Levi. When she had said it, the scars on my palms had seemed to ache as they did when they were new. "I did not know that he was," I answered. Her eyes widened. "Katrina, I ran away when I was fourteen. I have heard nothing from or of my father since. Nor did I wish to. For all I knew, he was still alive somewhere."

Her eyes were full of horrified pity. Of course she, who was the apple of her father's eye, cannot imagine not even knowing whether your father is alive or dead. Which reminded me.

"How is David?" I asked.

She smiled sadly. "Very contented. He went to bed and fell straight asleep."

"At least one good thing has come of this evening's folly."

"Only one? Did you not get the answer you were looking for? The solution to the murder?"

I was surprised, but of course, Katrina was not at the murder scene, she did not see the evidence. "No. Christopher said that Gabriel Erickson confirmed St. James' guilt," I began, my voice turning steady and rapid. "But Katrina, _St. James could not have committed the murder!_ There was no blood on his clothes  Katrina, there was blood all over that room, even a few drops on the _ceiling_. And where was the weapon? Even that dolt Witherspoon had to admit that it did not look like a gunshot wound, though he cares little enough. And finally, Katrina, St. James has no motive whatever. None!"

"You admit the séance was real, but you do not believe the accusation?"

"Precisely." I stood restlessly and began pacing. "The séance was real, but the ghost lied. What does this point to?" I strode back and forth a few times before noticing her smile. "What is it?"

There was relief and affection in her lovely face. "You are yourself again. All you needed was something to puzzle over, Sir Rational." She rose and came to my side, clasping my hands in hers. "I was worried. I kept remembering how you were after you saw the Horseman for the first time." I stiffened; I do not care to be reminded of the near-madness that followed that moment of utter terror. She squeezed my hands. "Let me make you a sleeping draught. You need rest after what I put you through tonight."

"Do not blame yourself, my love. My own conceit is always quite sufficient to get me into trouble." She gave me a fond smile, and I managed one in return. I let her lead me from the laboratory, pausing only to lock the door; I have to be absolutely certain that no one is tampering with my experimentations, even accidentally.

In the kitchen, she put some herbs over the fire and boiled them. There was no raven's foot in this particular potion, but she did recite a chant as it boiled. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as she did so. She continued with her usual serenity, and an expression I had heard somewhere ran through my head, as it had many times since we had met: _Still waters run deep._

In the middle of her chant, she suddenly glanced at me, her face full of compassion. Her unerring instinct startled me. I knew she was a white witch before I married her, but the truth is, I have no idea how much power she has. Many times I have thought of asking, but to tell the truth, I have not had the courage to face this particular knowledge.

She put the warm drink in my hand and brushed back the hair that had fallen into my face. "How will you proceed now, since you still believe August St. James to be innocent?"

I took a swallow of the drink and said briskly, with relief, "I shall proceed as I should have done had this séance business never entered the matter. I have no idea how to solve the puzzle of why a genuine séance yielded false information, but I do know how to seek out motives and clues and murder weapons. Tomorrow I shall speak to St. James' family, and to that Colonel Dorn the Ericksons mentioned."

 

*

 

"Do you believe that you will find anything more than what the Magellans were able to tell us? Ichabod, I have faith in your reasoning... but the spirit did confirm St. James' guilt," I sighed. "Ichabod, I am torn. I do not know what to believe. If in your heart you believe he is still innocent, then I urge you to do whatever is necessary to find out otherwise." _Without causing further pain to the Magellans,_ I thought bleakly. How could I advise him when, for once, I was the one in doubt?

"Thank you," he said gratefully. "This means more to me than you will ever know. But how tiresome cases such as this become!"

"Then come to bed, love," I urged Ichabod gently. "There is nothing more that you can do tonight. I still feel terrible for having originated such a sham. _I_ certainly should have known better." I should have. In my quest to prove that I, too, was clever and ingenious, I had made fools of us both.

"It was the only way," he consoled me. I could not help but sense that he felt as reckless as I.

"Perhaps so," I replied with reluctance, "but I wish I had-" _heeded Isobel's warning and probed her mind further so that I would have known that our lie would result in physical harm to her person!_ I cut myself off abruptly. Sometimes I could tell by the look in Ichabod's eye that he was content knowing what he knew, and nothing more.

Embracing me comfortingly, he sighed, "I know. I wish we had approached the matter more tactfully, too."

_We._ I was at once both stung and relieved that he had, in some small measure, acknowledged my guilt. We had drawn so close that my head rested on his shoulder. In his eyes, was I everything that I could be? I turned my face against the cool whiteness of his collar, ran my fingers over the twill of his vest. I ached for him.

"I wish," I said quietly, "that there was not so much pain in this world."

"And I wish that I could rid the world of it," Ichabod murmured, his lips finding my tightly closed eyelids. "How long until this potion of yours renders me an invalid?" he asked, his voice filled with the very longing for solace that tore through me.

I glanced down at the half empty teacup on the table. I dared not tell him that I had included an herb that would make his nocturnal thoughts so clear that I would have no trouble tapping into his dreams even as we both slept. Even if he did not finish it now - which I hoped he would not - the herb's efficacy would not be altered in the least. "An hour or so, considering you have not finished it," I said softly.

I willed the tender insistence of his mouth upon mine to push all guilt to the farthest reaches of my consciousness as we half-walked, half-stumbled up the stairs. On nights like this I was grateful that our room was set at the farthest end of the hall. For an hour, the harrowing events of earlier were forgotten. I surrendered my breath and my willfulness to Ichabod's imploring fervor. If ever I wished to be helpless, I decided, it would be at the hands of a passion so acute that it paralyzed the senses. I ran trembling, helpless fingers through my husband's tousled hair, gasping more formless words than I would swallow.

"_Katrina..."_ Ichabod whispered breathlessly, "_never change! I love you so much."_

I lay staring at the canopy overhead long after Ichabod had succumbed to sleep. The breeze from the window was cool on my bare arms, and I imagined as I held him that we were a pair of fairytale lovers like the knights and ladies that paraded on the beautiful tapestry above us. Where furniture was concerned, I had been as modest as I could without sidestepping the lines of my own mildly extravagant taste whether he knew it or not. The bed, however, had been a completely different matter. I could not have resisted the elegant four-poster canopy draped with Medieval hangings any more than I could have resisted Ichabod's unwitting charm.

Guilt ebbed back slowly but surely, tempting me harshly to sleep. It was too soon for Ichabod to be dreaming deeply, I knew. But I could elude my own spell no more than Ichabod could. I drifted off at length, grateful that Ichabod's magic had held mine at bay even for a little while.

 

*

 

_Dusk. Cold wind and restless trees. I looked around and saw that I stood in a clearing not unlike where David's father had been found on that awful morning in Sleepy Hollow. I held up one of my hands and saw nothing. I was invisible._

_I was aware of a human form approaching slowly through the rising mist. I cried out soundlessly. I recognized Ichabod at once._

_Except that he was younger. Much younger. A handsome youth of fourteen or fifteen with terror in his eyes and grave reluctance in his step. I realized with shock that the dark shadow across one of his cheeks was not a shadow at all. It was a bruise._

_He walked with his eyes everywhere at once, his arms clutched tightly about himself. He was so much thinner, I realized. So much more vulnerable. He seemed to be searching for something that lurked ever around the next bend in the path, never fully meeting his searching gaze. And then the wind howled._

_"Foolish son of Levi!" it roared, swirling leaves and dust and tiny raindrops that had just begun to fall._

_"No!" Ichabod cried, an eerie echo from the ill-fated séance. The wind picked up so powerfully that it forced him to his knees. He covered his eyes with his hands, sobbing._

_I watched in horror, unable to stop the forces of nature that beat upon him relentlessly. He cried out again, this time in anguish. I rushed toward him, but the whirlwind flung me back. I had seen the cause of his horrified grief: his palms were nothingness and he could see straight through them. He had no shield against the debris that the wind drove into his ever-seeking eyes._

When Ichabod woke crying out in pain and confusion, I woke with him, comforting and drowning out his tears with my own.

 

*

 

As always, her white magic swept my rational mind aside. I was drawn helplessly on by her kisses, rendered at her mercy by her delicate touch. With her usual unerring instinct, she dissolved my control, leaving me defenseless in her arms. I clung to her, desperate for reassurance that she was still mine, and she yielded it without question  and her very surrender put me even more securely in her power.

But even the combination of Katrina's potion and the spell of her arms was not enough to grant me peace that night. I dreamt about the night I ran away, fearing what was all around me only slightly less than I feared what I left behind. A voice taunted me, reminding me whose son I am, and then my hands became hollow, allowing the dirt and leaves to blow into my eyes  it seemed that warmth and safety were nearby, but I could not see to reach them.

When I came to my senses, I was sobbing into Katrina's golden hair. Her arms were tight about me, holding me with more strength than such a small woman ought to have. I gulped for breath, trying to calm myself. I hate for her to see me like this, hate for her to glimpse the painful memories and contemptible fears that lurk under all my logic and purpose. And yet, the first time she embraced me, when I jolted awake from my nightmare the night the Horseman wounded me  it was at that moment that I began to believe in life again.

"I feel as if my father has risen from the grave to plague me some more," I murmured inanely before I could stop myself.

She moved away just enough so that I could see her face, beautiful and compassionate. My mother had eyes like hers. "If he did, I would never let him near you," she whispered. It was absurd, perhaps  or perhaps not  but I felt reassured. I saw a spark of protective anger in her eyes as she kissed my cheek. I do not know why I flinched at the touch, but she did not look offended, only very sad. With infinite gentleness, she took a corner of the sheet and wiped my eyes.

Gaining a bit more control, I said, "Forgive me, my love. With all you do for me, the least I could do is allow you a nights sleep."

"Dont talk like that!" she said indignantly, cuddling closer. "I could never do enough for you."

"But you do," I whispered. I drifted off to sleep in her arms for the second time that night.

 

I woke before she did in the morning and got carefully out of bed, not wishing to wake her. Looking at her porcelain features in peaceful sleep as she lay in the fanciful bed she had chosen for us, I found myself believing for a moment that she was a princess from a fairy tale. But I did not disturb her enchanted sleep. Not after waking her by blubbering like a child in the middle of the night. The woman has the patience of a saint. I dressed and went to the kitchen to cook breakfast. It would be a far simpler meal than she generally produces  my capabilities are certainly exceeded by hers  but I felt she deserved a rest. I had just begun when David appeared.

"Can I help, sir?"

I glanced around. "Slice a few apples," I suggested. I studied him as he found a knife and began. There was a new calmness in the boy's eyes. "David," I said suddenly. He looked up. "I I am happy for you. About what Miss Magellan told you last night, I mean. I am certain your parents are proud. I would be," I added awkwardly.

"Thank you, sir." The look in his eyes was grateful and admiring. How is it that these two who share my home see me so differently from the rest of the world?

"Which brings us to something I've been meaning to talk over with you. What does Katrina have you studying?"

"Latin, Greek, literature, and history."

How like Katrina, to give an orphaned servant boy a gentlemans education. If she had been in the room I would have kissed her. Nodding approval, I said, "Excellent. But a man needs more practical knowledge as well, especially if you are to be a detective. Would you like to begin to study natural philosophy and chemistry?"

The boy's face lit up. It was pleasing to see him so excited at the prospect of acquiring knowledge. He was barely literate before Katrina took him under her wing, but he has since proven himself bright enough. "Yes, sir!"

"Good. Before I leave today, I will give you a couple of basic texts to study." I frowned over the stove. "But there is something you must do for me in return."

"Of course!" David was actually eager to do something for me. Even after half a year, I can hardly credit his loyalty.

"It is about Katrina." I paused, trying to frame my request in the right form. "Ladies do not really understand how dangerous the world can be, David. It is our duty to protect them, even from themselves." His eyes were wide and serious as he nodded. "When I am on duty, you are the man of the house. I need you to keep an eye on Katrina. Accompany her when she goes out, and if she takes it into her head to visit McRaker's Alley again, or any other dubious area, do your best to talk her out of it. Say whatever you have to, only stop her from going there. And if you cannot stop her, at least go with her, stay by her side like a burr. Can you do that for me?"

He nodded earnestly. I had been hoping that invoking a sort of man-to-man tone would inspire the boy, and it seemed to be working, even though I felt like a pompous fool talking like that.

Katrina appeared a few minutes later and tried to take over the cooking. I adamantly refused, making her sit down and let me serve her for a change. When I had eaten as much as I could manage, I went to the laboratory and found a couple of books that might be simple enough for David to swot his way through. I came back downstairs in full uniform and gave David the books, which he took eagerly and promptly sat down to read.

Katrina raised inquiring eyebrows. "I am stealing your pupil from you," I explained. "For part of the time, at least. We are beginning his detectives education."

She smiled at me with warm approval. "He must have been happy to hear that." She put her hands on my shoulders and kissed my cheek, then stood back and let her eyes run over my constable's jacket. She claims to find me very handsome in my uniform, but I think she is just trying to console me for having to wear the blasted thing. "I hope you find what you are looking for."

"So do I." I kissed her and left the house. As I walked, I turned all I knew over in my head. The revelations of the séance had shaken my certainty, but no matter how many times I reviewed the facts of the murder, they still pointed to St. James innocence. I could only press on and hope that everything became clear in time.

Séance or no, police procedure varies little. I still had to learn who had a motive for murdering Erickson and framing St. James.

After speaking to several of St. James acquaintances, I went to visit his wife. She was distraught, but even in that state it was clear she was an admirable woman, strong-minded and compassionate, and the beauty of her youth still shone through her years.

She looked at me with desperate eyes, even as she held herself with dignity. "Constable, my husband is innocent. He could never have done anything like this."

"I believe you." She stared at me. Before she could become too hopeful, I added, "But my fellow constables do not. I am trying to prove that your husband is innocent and bring the true killer to justice. It will help if you will answer my every question honestly and completely."

She nodded shakily and gestured for me to sit down.

"Who might have had a grudge against your husband? Anyone at all."

"I cannot" Something crossed her face. After a moment, she shook her head. "I cannot think of anyone."

"Who were you thinking of?"

She sighed. "I do not think he could commit such a murder, if only because I do not think he has the nerve to take such a risk."

"Who?"

"Colonel Nathaniel Dorn."

I scrutinized her face. This was the second time I had heard Dorn mentioned. "Why might he have held a grudge against your husband?"

She smiled wryly. "Because he _was_ my husband. Nathaniel courted me, long ago. It has been twenty years, but I think he never forgave August for winning me from him. Not that Dorn would have had a chance in any case," she added disdainfully.

"Why do you think he never forgave?"

She lowered her eyes and her face darkened. "Nathaniel made it clear that he still admired me." Resolutely, she looked me in the eye. "He asked me to to be his mistress on more than one occasion. The last only a few months ago."

I stood up straighter. "I see." I paused, searching for a tactful way to ask what I had no choice but to ask.

Seeing my discomfiture, she said firmly, "I refused him. I have refused his every offer, Constable Crane."

"I see," I repeated formally, relieved. Some roundabout questioning determined that St. James did not own any weapon that could have inflicted the wound I saw, and Mrs. St. James quite convinced me that she had no idea how her husband's gun had found its way to the crime scene. She also confirmed that Colonel Dorn had known of the engraved guns existence.

When I called on Colonel Dorn, I was greeted by an enlisted man and an enormous black dog. The dog glared at me balefully. I stood still as a statue, keeping an eye on it.

The enlisted man, who looked like a stable hand, smirked at me before saying contemptuously, "Go sit, Cerberus." Naturally, anyone who would own such a beast would give it an ostentatious name like that. The beast turned and lumbered to the corner, where it sat, still watching me in a way I did not care for. "He's part wolf," the soldier boasted. "Just a puppy, too. Waitll he grows up." The soldier leered at me. "He eats small animals and lost children... and the occasional constable when he can get it."

I managed to find my voice and explained my business. The enlisted man raised his eyebrows, but showed me into a sitting room and left in search of Colonel Dorn.

When Dorn entered, I was immediately put in mind of some of my more thuggish fellow constables. His hair was combed, but somehow gave the impression of being unkempt; he had a rather flat face; and his nose looked as if it had been broken.

When he saw me, I saw a quickly masked flash of worry in his face. My years in the constabulary have taught me what that look means. I drew myself up to my full heighthe was a trifle taller than I  and put on my most forbidding expression.

"Colonel Dorn." I spoke flatly, hoping he would hear accusation in my words. "I am Constable Crane. I must speak to you about the murder of Gabriel Erickson."

"Why are you questioning me?" he asked nervously.

I looked straight at him. "Because I am told you are acquainted with both the deceased and the accused."

He relaxed promptly and gestured for me to sit down. "Ah. A routine inquiry, then."

"Perhaps," I hedged, disappointed. I had lost the edge over him I had started with. "May I ask about your association with the deceased?"

"We served together in the Revolution." He tended to thrust his flat face at me as he spoke, and his tone seemed to invite a fight, as if he expected me to disagree with his least comment. Small wonder a woman should prefer the urbane St. James to this belligerent oaf.

"And since then?"

"I have only seen him by chance since then."

"Did you serve in the same regiment?"

His brows drew together. "For a time. Then he was given his own command."

I took a chance. "Did you perhaps serve under him in his own command?"

He looked furious. "No, of course not." He stopped, as if biting his words off. So he did hold a grudge, even after twenty years.

"And what of your association with August St. James?"

"I served with him as well." He smirked. "His wife is a dear friend of mine."

With distaste, I grasped at once what he meant to imply. But I did not believe it for a moment. Mrs. St. James, I felt certain, was a faithful wife.

"And may I ask where you were on the night of the murder?"

A confident smile spread over his face. "I was giving a dinner party. Would you like a guest list?"

"Much appreciated," I said, surprised. Seldom are alibis presented with such alacrity. He produced the list promptly. All in all, an excellent alibi. But the mans gloating manner had me convinced that he was behind the murder. Not with his own hands, but at his bidding, yes. I would have to investigate his associates. I would start with the guest list. I left, skirting Cerberus warily, and went to the home of the first man on the guest list.

Senator Dalton Trevayne lived in a costly apartment crammed with antiques. I would have wagered that not an item in the place had not come from Europe. I found it rather gloomy, and was glad Katrina's taste ran to simpler elegance.

The Senator was not effeminate in manner, yet he was wearing the most foppish outfit I have ever seen: lace at his throat and wrists, purple silk, a curled periwig, and four signet rings. He spoke to me as if I were a servant  but then, I think most servants would leave the employ of any who spoke to them that way. On the wall over the fireplace was a crest which he made a point of mentioning was his familys. I did not ask about the oil portraits; they bore little resemblance to him, and I suspected he wanted people to assume that they were illustrious ancestors, though they were not. Had they been so, I feel certain he would have mentioned it. He did mention that his ancestors in England had been barons. I left with the impression that Trevayne would far rather be a duke than a Senator.

Simon Purnell lived in a lavish house on New Yorks most fashionable street. Purnell, it seemed, had tremendous inherited wealth. The two rooms I saw were generously laden with exotic artifacts from other lands, with Oriental paintings and Egyptian urns and Hindu statuary. And it was clear enough what he did with his wealth, aside from furnishing his luxurious house. Even for the ten minutes he spent talking with me, confirming that he had attended Dorn's dinner party, he could not be apart from his female companions. They were dressed in the finest silks, but even the latest Paris fashions could not disguise their character. He corrected their manners constantly and irritably, at which they would only snicker, and he would sulk. Both of the women gave me looks that made me wish to run from the room. How any man could consort with such creatures is beyond me.

Though it was clear enough why he had to seek the company of such wretched women. The man looked like a frog. He had a weak chin and an overbite, and more, there was something in his manner that made the skin crawl. The man was simply unwholesome, through and through.

Right as I was about to leave, I noticed something that made my flesh crawl far more than the knowing looks of Purnell's companions. In an urn decorated with pseudo-Grecian designs were several dried samples of a plant that is not indigenous to this continent. Even without the odd knowledge acquired from marriage to a white witch, I would have known its uses, for the folklore is commonly known. Mandrake root.

I averted my eyes from the eerily shaped plants quickly and left the house. Perhaps they were mere novelties, but their presence was unsettling.

As I walked to the home of the next guest, I wondered what these men had found to talk about over dinner. I could not see that they had a thing in the world in common, except perhaps my dislike of them. I was curious to see what other anomaly Major Joseph Hawke would present.

As it turned out, he was the only one of the guests who I liked. He was seated behind a desk when his servant showed me into his study, and he did not rise when he shook my hand, yet his manner was so respectful  of both of us  that this small omission did not give offense. His face was rather plain, but so expressive that it soon became quite engaging. And I liked the way he looked directly at one.

"Major Joseph Hawke?" I greeted him.

"Colonel," he corrected affably. "Well, I will be as of tomorrow."

"Congratulations," I said, not certain that this was the proper reply. "I am Constable Ichabod Crane."

"Please, be seated. What can I do for you, Constable?"

"I am confirming that you were present at the dinner party given by Colonel Nathaniel Dorn a few days ago?"

He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "I was. Are dinner parties always police matters?"

"Only when they coincide with murders of acquaintances of those who give them." In response to his inquiring look, I explained, "On the night of the party, a man named Gabriel Erickson was murdered. And Colonel Dorn was acquainted both with the victim and with the accused. I am investigating the case."

He regarded me for a second. "So the murderer has not been apprehended?

"A man named August St. James has been arrested," I corrected, "but it is by no means certain that he is guilty."

He gave me a penetrating look that suited his surname. "You seem to think that he is not." His manner inspired confidence. I met his eyes steadily, not denying it. "Do you have other suspects?"

"Other suspects are what I am looking for."

"Why do you think the man you have already arrested is innocent?"

"There was blood all over the room where the murder was committed, yet not a drop on the suspects clothing." He stared at me, and then his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Encouraged at this sign, I added, "And the murder weapon was not on the scene, or in the suspects possession. A gun he owned was on the scene, but the wound was clearly not a gunshot."

I have to admit, the look Hawke gave me was very satisfying. Comprehension, respect, and interest at the new field being opened to him. "Amazing! I had no idea the constabulary did this sort of thing."

"It doesn't. My attempts to persuade them to do so are a constant irritation to all," I admitted flatly.

He seemed to consider for a few seconds before answering, as if this intelligence had special significance for him. But then he looked at me with even more respect. "An innovator! You must tell me about this deduction business. How did you start on this?"

I was both abashed and pleased; I have had little enough credit for what I am trying to do. Generally I am called at best a lunatic and at worst a heretic. "I have always been a voracious reader. In scientific texts and criminal case studies, I began to come across hints of how the guilty might be detected by scientific techniques. With such techniques, it would be possible to abolish torture."

His eyes seemed to see far more than was before him. "So your motives are humanitarian." I shrugged. "I want to hear about your methods. How do you go about detecting these hints of yours?"

It was gratifying indeed to be given such attention. "A great deal of it is simply looking at the crime scene and asking how things got the way they are. Bloodstains, for instance, or anything that is knocked over. I have also found that there are chemical reactions to many common poisons. I have studied medicine a great deal as well; symptoms can help to determine causes of death."

"Fascinating! But you say your colleagues do not heed you?"

I sighed. "Indeed they do not."

"Then you are the only man who is doing what you have just described?"

"I believe so, unfortunately."

He sat back in his chair, smiling widely. "Take heart, Crane. It is the story of all adventurers. Your day will come. Perhaps sooner than you think."

"God willing," I answered, surprised.

"Perhaps what you need is a patron. A mentor with powerful friends," he mused.

"Not very likely. I have never been found ingratiating."

He gave me another penetrating look. "You hold yourself too high to curry favor?"

"I simply do not know how. I have never had the knack of making myself liked. It would be useful to my work, I suppose."

"Perhaps you only need for one man to like you, Crane. A man of vision."

"Like yourself?" I joked lightly.

"Perhaps," he said seriously. Suddenly changing manner to become jovial once more, he added, "But I can see that you are a man who goes your own way, without waiting for approval. As does every great man. Do you think Bonaparte waited for anyone to invite him to be an emperor?"

It took me a moment to find a reply to this apparent non sequitur. "Bonaparte? What does he have to do with it?"

"Simply that he carved out his own path."

"A path which Horatio Nelson is bent on blocking."

Hawke snorted. "Yes, that upstart sailor continues to challenge the Emperor!"

"Who is also an upstart," I pointed out.

"Every royal dynasty in history was founded by an upstart who anointed himself. And however the war between Napoleon and Nelson ends, Nelson will be remembered only because he inconvenienced a great man."

I raised an eyebrow, slightly amused at Hawke's unusual viewpoint. "I thought that we former colonials were not fond of Napoleon."

"It is not the issue of monarchy that is at stake. It is the character of a man capable of plucking a crown from the gutter and placing it on his own head! It required only the daring to do it!"

As Hawke spoke, the topic energized him and he rose for the first time, pacing back and forth. I was taken aback for a second, and then with some amusement I understood his admiration for the Italian general who had anointed himself. Because Joseph Hawke, for all his commanding presence, was scarcely above five feet tall! Katrina and David would have been about of a height with him. In spite of my amusement at the sudden discovery, I also experienced a flash of fellow-feeling. I, a constable with a slight build and a weak stomach, know well enough what it is to have a frame unsuited to ones ambitions. I could well understand why one small man would be so fired by the huge deeds of another.

I rose. "I suppose my business here is done," I said reluctantly, "but I have greatly enjoyed speaking to you, Major Hawke. Colonel Hawke," I added with a smile.

He shook my hand; he had a powerful grip. "As I have. We must meet again sometime soon. I wish to hear more about this deduction business."

I could not resist this. "By all means."

I left Hawke in good spirits. But then, I was no nearer to an answer to the murder than I had been that morning. As I walked, the séance kept nagging at my thoughts, until it inspired a mad idea. I turned to McRaker's Alley with resolute steps.

I did not want to think of what I should have said a year ago to anyone who told me that I would ever set out to cross-examine a ghost. Nor could I believe that Constable Ichabod Crane was actually going to solicit a mediums help in a murder investigation.

Christopher Magellan's glaring face came into my mind and my steps slowed. But Katrina's words also came to me: "Where is the Constable Crane who leaves no stone unturned?" I could not fail to live up to her vision of me. I had to do what I could to redeem myself in her eyes after the disaster of the previous night. Of course, after said disaster, the Magellans might well refuse my request. But try I must.

 

*

 

I was left with the same sensation as always as Ichabod walked out the door: the faint warmth of his lips on my cheek and the impression that he was never quite satisfied with something. I closed the door behind him with a sigh. David looked up from his book in concern.

"Forgive me for saying so, Katrina, but you ought not worry him so much."

Such a direct reprimand coming from one so young startled me. "Excuse me?" I asked, baffled.

"You shouldn't worry Ichabod," David repeated, lowering his eyes.

I was affronted. "What makes you think that I worry him?" I challenged, finding that the warning tone rising in my voice was identical to my mother's.

"Because Because" David stammered, regretting his rashness of speech.

"Ichabod had a talk with you this morning," I ventured, "didn't he?"

David's head flew up, eyes wide with fear. "Yes," he whispered.

"He instructed you to keep me away from McRaker's Alley, didn't he?" I guessed sourly.

"Katrina, please!" David begged. "Ichabod only-"

"Wants to protect me? God love him; I know! I am touched, David, but I can take care of myself where matters like this are concerned. Isobel asked me to return. She's frightened and needs someone to talk to. How can I refuse a plea like that, David? Besides, I am still convinced that she will need treatment for her hands. I doubt that Christopher is half as skilled with herbs as I am."

David stood his ground, however timidly. "I still think that you should listen to Ichabod. McRaker's Alley is a terrible place, Katrina! You could be robbed or killed. Ichabod has enough to worry about as it is-"

"Then it is for the sake of helping him that I will return there," I said firmly. "Who knows. By speaking with the Magellans again, I may discover something of importance. David, I cannot leave Isobel face her fear alone. It is a bond that is difficult for people like you and Ichabod to understand, and I pray you will not take offense at that," I added gently, sorry that I had been brusque with David. I embraced him briefly.

"If you insist on going, then Im coming with you," he said, undaunted.

"Did Ichabod ask you to do that, too?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"I cant hide anything from you," David sighed edgily, resting his chin on my shoulder.

"Promise me that you will stay here and watch the house," I said. "Ichabod will never know that I went out. Neither of us will breathe a word of it. I cannot endanger you. If he deems McRaker's Alley an unfit place for me, then it is certainly unfit for you."

David nodded numbly, eyes full of foreboding. "Yes, Katrina," he replied, defeated. "I will stay."

"Wait a minute," I said, turning and racing up the stairs. I pulled a small, delicately carved, hinged maplewood box from under the bed. It materialized out of invisibility the instant my fingers touched it. The spell was a difficult one to perform, but it had served me well in hiding valuable things. I opened the box and pulled out two items. As I slid the box back under the bed, it slowly faded to nothingness.

I returned to David and held out one of the objects to him. He took it from me with a look of awe.

"Is this yours?" he asked in wonder, running his fingers over the tiny pistol inlaid with jade and mother-of-pearl.

"It was my mother's. She never used it. Neither have I, but I keep it loaded at all times. It is now your protection against danger."

David looked at me with gratitude, as though the gift made good his promise not to tell Ichabod of my disobedience. "Thank you, Katrina!"

I nodded in satisfaction, tucking the second object- a soapstone ointment jar- into the pocket of my cloak, which I had donned hastily on my way out of the bedroom.

I touched David's cheek. "Our home is in your keeping. I will be only a few hours, if not less time than that. You are a brave boy."

I watched his small form waving from the doorway until I could no longer walk with my head turned over my shoulder. I studied the other stately homes of Karrigan Square contemplatively, still amazed at the glaring difference between our neighborhood and the Magellans. I could not help but wonder if poverty was yet another ill that Ichabod wished he could eradicate, if that was why the mere sight of such surroundings never failed to turn him. Without even thinking about it, my consciousness stretched itself, venturing abroad.

"Who might have had a grudge against your husband? Anyone at all"

Ichabod's words filled me. At that very moment, somewhere, he was questioning the suspects wife. I sifted the ladys thoughts more gently, more reticently. What I found there was devastation but a fierce will to fight. And to refuse a man by the name of Colonel Dorn. I had no doubt that Ichabod would question him next.

I left Ichabod to his inquiry, focusing my attention on the familiar marketplace just ahead. There were even more vendors than there had been previously. I noticed with interest that a few curiosity dealers and booksellers had established an aisle of their own. I approached it, unable to resist.

One table in particular caught my attention. I had never seen such varying relics on display. Pagan and Christian lore were interspersed haphazardly on a green silk table cloth, crucifixes and Madonnas and other entities side by side with charm books and amulets of semiprecious stone. I fingered a small one in the shape of an eye. It was quite ordinary, except for two criteria: it was made of marble, and its center- both iris and pupil- was _missing_. It was strung on a sterling chain like the one Isobel wore. The vendor sat on a stool, half turned away and reading a heavy text that balanced on his knees. I picked up the amulet possessively.

"Sir," I began politely, "how much is this one?"

He looked up, quite startled. I realized then that not only was he dressed in black, but he was also wearing a clerics collar. He was thin and angular, with a full head of white hair and a neatly clipped beard. His sharp green eyes fastened on me with a look of ominous appraisal that I had seen altogether too many times in Ichabod's more jealous compatriots. I shrank away, unable to look at him.

"Yes, my lady?" he asked in an unctuous voice. I could tell that this man had no qualms where currying favor with those in high places was concerned.

"How much is this?" I repeated, forcing myself to reestablish eye contact.

He leered greedily, rubbing his chin as though determining the price were a matter of extraordinary delicacy. "It is rare," he remarked with a showmans mysterious flair, naming the price dramatically.

"That is too much," I answered flatly. I, too, could play this game. I let my hand slowly begin to lower the artifact back onto the table.

"I can see that you are not easily bought," the sinister clergyman said, that horrible grin never once leaving his face. I stared back in defiance. He would never know what hit him.

Cold fear seized me at the thought-pictures that unfolded from within him. A shadowy alley behind a small church. The clergyman himself emerging from the basement, sounds of drinking and _revelry_ floating up behind him. An unidentified figure emerged from the shadows, haggled with the green-eyed priest for a few moments, and threw a sack of money into the dirt. The clergyman cackled, scooped it up, and disappeared into the basement. He returned with two giggling, painted ladies on his arm and handed them over to the stranger.

Hot-cheeked, I quickly shut off my undetected surveillance, looking away from the clergyman. _Nor am I easily sold! _I thought furiously. I had seen clearly enough what this man saw in me: _profit_. What manner of a priest runs a brothel in the House of the Lord?

"My lady, are you interested in this piece? I have no others like it."

"I am," I replied defiantly, "but I will not pay what you ask." I made a counter proposition that he could not refuse. He could not refuse it because I worked a charm in the lilt of my voice that would forbid it.

"Very well," the vendor replied slowly, as though dazed. He accepted my payment and I placed the charm directly around my neck. He was still studying me with traces of an appetite in his wicked eyes.

"If you ever have need of well, shall we say, employment, my lady, remember that Reverend Burris has been known to procure a favor or two for a girl in need of spare change."

"I am not so easily _sold _either," I answered icily, discreetly flashing my wedding ring. He put up his hands as if in empty apology and turned back to his book. I stalked off neither too quickly nor too slowly. My heart skipped a beat. Ichabod's condemnation of this place seemed all the more forgivable.

I reached the Magellans' tenement and climbed the steps to their flat. I rapped softly on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, puzzled. Still no response. I pressed my ear to the door. I heard a soft rustling.

"Isobel?" I called. "Isobel, are you there?"

The door flew open instantly. Isobel stood there with her bandaged hands crossed over her heaving chest.

"I am so glad to see you," she exclaimed with relief, wildly gesturing me to come in. She shoved the door closed behind us, struggling with the bolt. I eased her away and locked it for her.

"I'm sorry that I did not answer straightaway," Isobel apologized nervously. "Its just that, when Christopher's out, I dont answer the door unless its _his_ knock."

"I understand," I replied. "I am beginning to realize that you can never be too careful in this neighborhood."

I looked around the small apartment. The table and chairs sat pushed into a far corner, the velvet cloth neatly folded on top of it. Isobel stood staring fretfully at her hands. When her eyes met mine, they shone with tears. I hugged her reassuringly.

"Where is Christopher?" I asked her soothingly.

"Out. I asked him to go to the market for me today. To one across town," she continued reticently, biting her lip.

"Why across town?" I asked.

She took a deep breath. "That is what I wanted to discuss with you."

She dragged two chairs away from the table with great difficulty. I took them from her quickly and situated them in front of the bookcase. I took a moment to track Ichabod.

_Simon Purnell  
_

Joseph Hawke

He was reading a list of names to himself, glancing uncertainly between his brief perusal and a nearby consciousness that I took to be Colonel Dorn. But I did not bother to probe him. Isobel's hand was resting on my shoulder.

"Lady Crane Lady Crane, are you all right?"

_Yes, _I replied, smiling faintly.

_I see! You are checking on the boy, I take it. I had wondered why he was not with you.  
_

"Exactly," I replied with an unsteady smile. "I left him at home to study. And by all means, call me Katrina!"

I was grateful that I had cloaked my minds roving from Isobel. I knew that she, too, could invade the fortress of another human mind. But I sensed a weakness in her. I doubted that she could read someone unless they were in the same room with her. Such was the price to pay for weakness in one talent when her strength in another was unbelievable.

"Please sit," Isobel offered. "I had wondered if your husband would let you come back. I was under the impression that he would forbid you to do so."

I stared down at my hands. "No," I lied. "He would not do that. Do not be concerned about it."

"Good," Isobel breathed. "I think I am being followed," she said, stunningly direct in approaching her worry.

"Is that why you asked Christopher to shop another market? So that he would not be in danger, either?"

"Yes. But"

"But what?" I asked gently, shocked by the depth of her terror, the suddenness of her tears.

"It is not human," she cried helplessly. "It could be anywhere!"

"What is?" I felt a chill run from the ends of my hair to the tips of my toenails.

"Whatevers following me. Normally, I. Katrina, I can see spirits as plainly as I can see you."

"I do not doubt that," I said firmly.

"I see them during the séances, ones that do not take me as a channel," she explained.

"You mean you saw them during the one that you performed for my husband and I?"

"I did," she said hesitantly. "I saw I do not know if you want to know."

"I think you had better tell me," I said quietly, taking her hand carefully.

"There was someone standing behind your husband. Not the one speaking through me, but the one to whom the spirit speaking through me referred."

My heart stopped. Ichabod's father had been directly behind us.

"And and the one speaking through you?" I choked.

"A Messenger, nothing special. There are hundreds of them that serve no purpose other than that- to serve as intermediary for those other souls too frightened, backward, or _unable _to speak through a human channel. Your husband's father is one of those. Damned in the sense that he is denied the privilege," Isobel explained. "But those spirits are not denied a Messenger."

I could not speak. I had let go of her hand. My thoughts stumbled over themselves, chilled and sluggish. I tried to find Ichabod again. His thoughts were routine and calculating: he was questioning yet another person whose name he had seen on the list. Someone who greatly loved wealth but had nothing to offer. Isobel sat in respectful silence for nearly half an hour as I continued my paranoid tracking. Ichabod entered another place of lavishness, a place of faint magic. That of a pretender. I scoffed inwardly at the presence of mandrake. It was old, unquestionably useless for anything except show. And then Ichabod's embarrassment as he questioned this man with two women on his arm. I sighed and slid out of the reverie. Ichabod was finding nothing of importance. And Isobel was patiently waiting.

"I am sorry," I gasped, looking up at her remorsefully.

"I cannot see it," she whispered brokenly.

"See what?"

"The thing that is following me. It is a presence, a malicious one. The fact that I cannot see it as I see the souls who wander the streets proves that it is something far worse than even what your husband's father has become."

"You cannot see evil spirits, then?"

"No. Not even your dead father-in-law is not sorry for what he has done in life. His folly yet is that, even in death, he still cannot admit his remorse."

I was amazed, could not reply.

"Demons, malignant familiars, dark elementals. Those, I cannot see. I can only sense their presence," Isobel explained.

"You fear that an evil spirit is following you?"

"Yes, and that is what terrifies me. They usually do not dare come near someone of my kind. We are untouchable to them. At least as far as I know" she said uncertainly, her voice fading.

I was drawn in by the full, horrifying complexity of her plight, completely forgetting Ichabod's doomed inquisition. "Are there any exceptions that you know of?"

"One," Isobel admitted.

"Reliable?" I asked.

"Not entirely. Its an old story. So old, Katrina. I heard it from a passing merchant several years ago. The one from whom I obtained this amulet, in fact," she said, fingering the palmless marble hand at her throat. My hand flew to the eye hidden beneath the bodice of my gown.

"Was he a cleric?" I asked.

"No," Isobel answered, puzzled. "It was a woman. She had a cart and a team of horses. She must have seen every corner of this continent. I had never seen wares so varied or genuine. She did not even have the amulet on display. She took one look at me, reached into a satchel by her side, and said I was to take it with no questions asked. And I did not ask, for I knew that empty palms to leave space for a channel was exactly what my brother and I did, even then when we were younger."

I started in surprise. "So the one who requests the séance does play a small part in channeling?"

"Yes. I need access to their emotions, their fears, their very lifeline. But this woman I spoke with her for a very long while. Among the other pieces of folklore that she related, there was the tale of an itinerant medicine-woman who exchanged mortality to have a demon in her service. Demons desperately need a human connection, you see. Unless they can sway a mortal mind to their liking, they are damned, powerless. The tale goes that this medicine-woman could loose the demon on whomever she chose. She loosed it on her own sister, the family's link to their ancestors. A great many terrible things fell upon their heads. I will not relate them. But it frightens me to know that even in superstition an evil spirit once descended upon a channel."

I shivered. There was so much that I did not know despite my own otherworldly inheritance. This magic indeed was ancient. And the story of those sisters hit a little _too_ close to home.

"Isobel, I mean no offense, but I am curious. What language did your brother speak as he rubbed the ash into my husband's palms?"

"It was a Sanskrit inscription."

"Isobel, I mean no offense, but I am curious. What language did your brother speak as he rubbed the ash into my husband's palms?"

"It was a Sanskrit incantation."

"Sanskrit? Where on earth did he learn it?"

"From our father. He spoke it fluently, was fascinated by the subcurrents of their culture. When he realized that Christopher and I had inherited something... unusual from his mother, he taught us some of what he knew. He also had come into possession of an inscribed tablet that caught his fancy at a curiosity dealer's, which he brought here just as he carried back the lovely daughter of an older British officer to be his bride."

"Your father was British?" I asked, brightly interested.

"Yes. Samuel Keller."

"Keller?"

"Magellan is our professional name," Isobel explained, quick to dispel my confusion. "Who would come to mediums with a name as common as Keller, after all? Advertising is half the trick, unfortunately. We used it in the most unobtrusive manner possible changing our name, not our pure method."

"What role did your father play in maintaining Britains control of India?" I asked.

"He was only a soldier. Less than one, actually. A swordsmith for the army, a servant. He was a half-breed," she added, her eyes conveying a silent challenge to anyone who dared think less of her for her lineage.

"You would never know!" I exclaimed. "You and your brother are so pale!"

"My mother was pale. Even my father had skin only faintly tinged with darkness. But his hair was black. His father, a commander, had an Indian concubine." Isobel stopped there. It was all that she needed to say. As I studied her face, I could not stop myself from smiling. So that was the strange beauty in the features of she and her brother- faintly almond shaped eyes, sharp and polished oval features.

"May I ask what happened to your parents?" I inquired cautiously.

"When Chris and I were thirteen" she said softly, "they never came back."

The comment was cryptic, but she offered no elaboration. From that moment, I realized that my fate was to love those whose childhoods had been too terrible to bear. I took her hands carefully and searched her tearstained face.

"Thank you for trusting me, Isobel," I said gratefully. "From the first day I saw you, I wanted to help you. I cannot explain why any more than I can explain why these strange events have drawn us together. I will do all that I can to help you," I promised, biting my lip. I pictured myself sketching pentagrams under the meager cots that served as the twins beds.

"Thank you. I had hoped you would say yes. I knew from the moment I saw you, too, that you were the one who could."

"Why is that?"

"Just as you knew something ailed me. Magic comes in many colors, but the base for each is the same."

I sighed and passed my fingers over her palms tentatively. She winced.

"How well did you clean and treat these?" I asked, trying to push the suspicion from my voice.

"Christopher took care of them" she admitted, biting her lip.

I carefully unbandaged one hand. Ash still clung to a few cuts, and they were red with irritation.

"You must let me wash them again," I said firmly. "They will become infected if you I do not."

"Theres water drawn in the kitchen," Isobel said.

Shortly after, I had some boiling on the stove. Isobel flinched but kept a brave, gray face as I swabbed her wounds with hot water. I spread some of the salve from the soapstone jar on each before bandaging them again.

"Keep this," I said, handing her the jar. "You need it more than I-"

We froze at the sound of tentative knocking.

"Is it Christopher?" I whispered.

"No!" Isobel exclaimed, agitated.

"Then keep quiet."

It took one cautious mental prod to send me reeling against the counter, ashen faced. I lost control of my search pattern, sending the energy in all directions. The bolt slid open of its own accord. In my distress, I had willed it.

Ichabod strode into the room, looking about in mild confusion. I still leaned weakly against the counter, peering helplessly into the main room of the flat.

"Is anyone home?" Ichabod called, lifting the curtains.

"Yes," replied Isobel amiably, much relieved. "Here, in the kitchen!"

Ichabod turned at the sound of her voice. His expression went from one of pleasant greeting to cold disbelief. He stared at me as though I had committed the very crime that he was investigating.

"Lady Crane," he said stiffly, barely able to contain his fury, "you are under arrest. Miss Magellan, pardon my intrusion."

Isobel stared at the floor. I matched Ichabod glare for glare. I had learned long ago that it took one pair of dark eyes to stare down another.

Isobel nodded dumbly. Ichabod offered me his hand mockingly.

"Either you come of your own accord, or I will drag you," he said coldly.

My stare shot daggers at him as I embraced Isobel. _Do not let this ruin what we have established today. I would not trade your confidence or your friendship for the world. I will help you, my sister! I bid you farewell for now and bid you forget my husband's rashness.  
_

Good day, then, Katrina, Isobel replied numbly, her clumsy hands suddenly tense on my shoulders. _But-  
_

Ichabod grabbed my arm. "You have chosen unwisely!"

I stared helplessly at Isobel as Ichabod led me toward the front door. I was able to catch Isobel's last words, and they burned a hole in my heart as deep as the ones in Ichabod's dream-palms.

_But I did not have the chance or the courage to tell you Something very dear to us has been taken!  
_

I did not find out what that something was. Ichabod held onto me the whole way home, too angry to speak. My arm ached from his vise grip when he finally released me inside our own home. I thanked God that David was nowhere in sight. Ichabod threw off his coat, ready to cut me down where we stood with his piercing glare. He was waiting for me to speak. To explain myself. I moved my lips but no sound came out.

"Have I married a _deaf_ as well as a mute?" Ichabod demanded. "Did David not tell you that I forbade you to set foot in McRaker's Alley?Did _I _not tell you that I forbid you to set foot in that wretched place? For the love of _God,_ Katrina! I even told him to accompany you if you were persistent! And you did not heed my instructions in that respect!" Ichabod spat. "I think you have none. Your husband's concerns are petty trifles to you."

I whipped off my cloak, flinging it in his direction. "Oh, enough! How was I supposed to know youd catch the fancy to pass by the Magellans? It was a harmless venture until you came waltzing in. You would never have known, and it wouldn't have hurt you one bit! Isobel needs me, Ichabod, whether you like it or not. She's alone and cannot voice her fears to her brother. She fears for both their lives, Ichabod! Oh, yes, I see that look in your eyes. Dont look so surprised. You cant accept it that perhaps your wife did some sleuthing and came up with more information than you did yourself!"

I stopped myself, horrified. Ichabod looked as if he were capable of killing someone. I backed away from him slowly. I regretted every word that had passed my lips. He was mortified that somehow I had discovered his secret. That his days work had been fruitless. And he did not know how I possibly could have done it. I gulped.

"So, you are presumptuous enough to believe you have bested me. That what I do is for naught, and so you took it into your own pretty hands and went out in search of glory at the expense of your own safety. _You dolt, Katrina! _I have done this for the better half of my life! It is my job! And whats more, my job now entails looking after a wife who is as reckless as all Hell broken loose and a child whose loyalties are so torn between the two of us that he cannot see straight! _Confound you! _Did you have to complicate things? Or do you just revel in the befuddlement that you've discovered that you can inspire in me so easily? Tell me," he raged tauntingly, "would you have dared behave this way if your capricious fancy had led you to be Lady Van Brunt?"

Something inside me snapped. The flat of my palm hit his cheek with such force that he stumbled into a tea table, knocking it and the porcelain flower arrangement that I had ordered from Italy to the floor. I stared at the shattered leaves and petals. My palm stung red with electric effervescence.

"Dont ever say anything like that again," I whispered numbly, blinded by tears. "Don't you ever."

His only reply was a stifled sob. I could not bring myself to touch him, not even to offer comfort. Turning away, I sank into the nearest armchair and wept bitterly. I did not have to look up to know that David was cowering at the top of the stairs. The terrible force of nature that I had harnessed left my hollowed-out system damnably clear. Not just thought images. Real, concrete, _life_ images. I could not only sense with my eyes closed then, but _see._

It seemed like hours when I finally lifted my head. My eyes ached, the lashes plastered to my cheeks, and when I lifted my eyelids, I felt as though I had reopened two seeping scabs. The room swam, but I could see well enough. Ichabod was gone, and the mess of shattered petals had been swept into a neat pile. The table was righted.

I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Six o'clock in the evening. I rose unsteadily, cursing the fickle quality of time. It was amazing what havoc a few hours could wreak.

I picked up the broom where the unknown sweeper (David, I assumed) had left it. I fetched the brass dustpan and mechanically swept up the ruined porcelain. After disposing of it, I cautiously surveyed the empty first floor. No sign of anyone. I mounted the stairs hesitantly.

David's bedroom door was locked, and so was the door to the laboratory. I was thereby not surprised to find the master bedroom empty. I sat down on the bed, unsure of what to do next. I dared not disturb Ichabod in the laboratory. For all I knew, he was formulating a poison deadly enough to kill us both in one drop. Perhaps he had drunk it himself already. I cried aloud, chasing the horrors from my mind. The morbid thoughts came unbidden, however, and I could not help but wryly wish I had not given my pistol to David. I fell back onto the coverlet, stretching my arms wide. My hand hit something hard and cold on the pillow.

I picked up the pistol with trembling fingers. A note lay beneath it.

_Ichabod,_ it read, _you need this rather worse than I do. _Signed_, David.  
_

I burst into sardonic laughter. So the boy had done us each a turn in hopes of raising our spirits: sweeping for me, firearms for Ichabod. I wondered from whom the child's sense of humor came. Certainly not his father.

I shoved the pistol into a drawer and dressed myself for bed. I tore the note into three dozen pieces and tossed them out the window. I planned on giving the gun back to David, but not without a talk on how to manage it responsibly. Something told me he was not out of danger. Isobel's words had settled and sorted themselves in my mind. I felt an increased need for wariness. It was then I remembered the eye amulet. It rested cool against my chest. I drew it out from beneath my nightdress and studied it in the candles spare glow.

_Sister_, I had called Isobel.

Second sight and open hands. Regardless the evil of the man from whom I had purchased the token, I felt no danger in its cool reassurance. I realized then that even adversity could turn up a tiny blessing.

Even that did not stop me from crying myself to sleep. I did not even feel it when Ichabod finally slid beneath the covers at my side, his back to mine.

 

*

 

I saw David watching anxiously as I strode past, but I did not look directly at him. I did not dare speak to him, not now. I went to the only part of Katrina's house where I belong: the laboratory. I locked the door.

I spent several hours stewing, resisting the urge to shatter every vial and instrument in the room. As usual, testing my conjugal authority had been a humbling experience. Oh, she generally acceded to my wishes, but I had always known that this was her indulgence and not my authority. I racked my brains for some way to curb my wayward bride, but short of locking her up I found none. And even had I been willing to do that, I doubt it should have sufficed.

How could she do this to me?

Did my torment of fear for her sake mean nothing to her? Was it all a game to her? To see how far out of my wits she could tease me? Had all her affection and care been the mere imagination of a man alone for too long?

Her disdain of my ability and my methods was not the smallest sting. There are few enough people who have respected what I am trying to do. To learn that she was not among them made me shrivel inside.

She simply did not care. My fear for her, my rights as her husband, my work  it all meant nothing to her.

_What did you expect, Crane? That a princess would fall in love with the alchemist in his hermits lair? _Outcasts such as I might yearn for fortunes child, but we are never meant to win her. I merely had the extraordinary stroke of luck of rescuing her from a monster, and though I hardly fit the bill for a knight errant, still I had received the traditional reward.

And under my justifiable anger, and my worry for her if she continued in this manner, was something I hated to face far more than murder victims or galloping ghosts.

She did not know what kind of demon she had raised. When I felt her hand strike my face, God forgive me, but for one shameful moment I wished I could strike back, could simply bully her into being sensible. That impulse welling up in me was appalling, fleeting as it was. I suppose I am my father's son after all. And that was what had me hiding in my laboratory.

After a long while my mind cooled enough to realize that my words had hurt her. Flinging her childhood sweetheart in her face had been an idiotic move, one that I hope I should never have made had she not unhinged me so. I am so accustomed to being grateful that an exquisite heiress has chosen me from among the scores of far more eligible men she could have had, that I had forgotten that she might feel in some small measure the same, that some of her contentment might rest on me as well.

_But all of mine rests upon her. If harm befell her  
_

How could I protect a city from itself if I could not even protect my own wife?

It was very late before I finally went to bed. She was asleep, her back turned to my side of the bed. With a heavy heart, I laid down with my back to her. It was the first night since our wedding that we did not sleep in an embrace. I did not expect to sleep. But of course, in time I did. How could I have nightmares if I did not sleep?

_I investigated the case over two years ago, but the details are still fresh. Some of them you never forget._

The woman was in her early thirties, and pretty. Not a raving beauty, but a pleasing face. When animated by laughter, she must have been quite taking. But I never saw her thus.

Witherspoon and I approached the alley cautiously. A heap of dark green silk was piled on the ground. As we neared it, it gradually took on shape. A womans shape. Her fine green dress had a few smears on it. Some were of dirt. Others were wet and red.

Her dark brown hair was falling out of its coiffure, and her eyes were as blue as the sky they stared at so vacantly.

She had a husband and two children waiting for her at home. I remember that. She was stabbed to death for the modest purse she had carried to do her shopping in the market at McRaker's Alley.

And as I looked at her prone body, as so often happens in dreams, she was no longer herself, but someone else. Her eyes became rich and dark, and her hair the color of flax.

I awoke with a cry, bathed in sweat. I gasped for breath as I became aware of the cool night air and the quiet darkness of our room.

Katrina sat up, her hair tousled, rubbing her eyes. I am ashamed to remember how many times I have awakened her in this fashion since our wedding, but this was the first time that she looked weary as she reached out to soothe me.

She put a hand on my shoulder. No embrace, not on this night. "What was it?"

I turned away from her to sit on the edge of the bed. "A dream about you in McRaker's Alley," I said shortly. "But whats one more cause of nightmares?"

She reached for my hand. "Ichabod"

I did something I never thought I would do: I pulled my hand away from hers. "Let me alone," I ordered curtly. "If you're going to continue to go there, I shall probably have to learn to get along without you."

I admit, I felt a glimmer of satisfaction at the hurt in her eyes. Let her have a sample of what she was putting me through. I left her and went back to the laboratory, where I stayed for the rest of the night.

I slept fitfully on the divan for a time, but mostly I sat and continued to brood. In the morning, there was a soft knock. "Come!" I called. David entered silently, carrying a breakfast tray. If I stay in my aerie for too long, I can rely on Katrina to send him up with some nourishment. I indicated a clear space on one of the tables and the boy put the tray there. He looked at me nervously.

"Sir Im sorry. I tried to, but."

Would Katrina and I tear the boy apart between us? I lifted a hand to silence him. "I know you did. Perhaps it was too much to ask of you."

As soon as I said it, I realized that it was the absolutely worst thing I could have said. The boy's eyes were stricken. Was Katrina's folly going to alienate everyone in our household?

"I didn't mean to let you down," he whispered.

"But you were willing to conspire with Katrina to deceive me," I retorted before I could stop myself. "Oh, David I cannot talk about this right now. I am too distressed." Awkwardly, I put my hand on his shoulder, then patted it. "It will be all right."

He looked up at me pitifully. I wished I could reassure him more, but I could not imagine how. And frankly, I was too miserable to try very hard. He walked slowly to the door.

"David."

"Yes, sir?"

"Kindly ask Katrina to come up here. I wish to speak to her." I paused. "And then youd best go to your room and study. We may be talking for quite a while."

The boy looked relieved. "Yes, sir."

I paced as I waited, pausing now and then to force down a bite or two of bread. It was several minutes before Katrina appeared and stood in the doorway, her chin high, her eyes waiting. She was ready to argue, or to accept reconciliation, but not to yield.

"You summoned me," she said. The slight emphasis she put on the second word told me why she had taken so long. She was telling me that she was not at my beck and call.

I had no intention of making matters worse with another foolish attempt to assert myself. "I requested an audience." To my relief, her eyes softened a bit. She stepped inside the room, closing the door behind her. I approached and took her hands gently. At my touch, her eyes met mine hopefully. This was the Katrina I knew, not the defiant woman with the sharp tongue I had spoken to the day before.

"Katrina, perhaps the way I spoke to you yesterday was not the best way to discuss this." I saw her shoulders sag slightly as she realized the course my words were taking, but I would not stop now. "But finding you there after I told you to stay away put me out of my mind with fear. I shall never be able to know if you are safe or not."

She looked away from me. "Ichabod"

"Please, listen to me." But then I paused, trying to order my thoughts. "First I am sorry about the things I said yesterday."

Her hands tightened on mine. "So am I. I regret every word I said."

"Then let us forgive each other at least so far as that is concerned."

Looking down at my hands clasping hers, she nodded mutely.

"Katrina." I tried to speak gently. "Did you do this because you resented my telling you what you might do?" She raised her eyes to mine, looking incredulous. "If we are wagering your safety on a battle of wills, Katrina, I surrender mine. You have my permission to go to McRaker's Alley whenever you like. And I _beg_ you, please do not do so. I am asking you, out of kindness to me, please, stay away from there."

She drew a breath. "Ichabod you did not truly think that was all it was? That I would defy you simply for the sake of doing so? Isobel asked me to return, Ichabod. I couldn't bear to break a promise. She needs me."

"_I_ need you!"

She looked at me, stricken, taken aback. "I... I know. But as much as you desire to help those in need, so do I! Was it so wicked of me?"

I stared at her, exasperated. If there is anything more disquieting than being married to a beautiful woman, it is being married to a brave one. Katrina was as near perfection as a mortal could be. If only she were not quite so willful. But if she were not, would I love her so? Would a less willful woman have followed me into the western woods?

"You are putting me through hell. Does that matter to you at all?"

She looked helpless, distressed. "It matters."

"But not enough to make you protect yourself." Her eyes dropped again. I pressed on. "Katrina, try to understand. I love you. I do not care to go on living without you. Terrible things could happen to you if you keep going to places like that."

Her eyes searched my face with that oddly inquiring look she has sometimes. But whatever she was looking for, she did not find it. She hesitated before choosing her words. "Ichabod cant you have a little more faith in me, that I am not so helpless as all that?"

"A beautiful young lady who is scarcely above five feet tall walking alone through a bad neighborhood in expensive clothes? I could tell you stories about such things. Such adventures generally lead to the intervention of the constabulary." I leaned closer, my hands tightening on hers. "Katrina, how can I keep you away from there? Would it help if I pleaded on my knees? Ill do it! I do not want you to go there!"

Her chin lifted and my heart sank. It is not impossible to change her mind when she gets that look, but it is very close. "Ichabod, Im sorry. But I have my duties just as you have yours."

My blood grew cold, and so did my voice. "Yes. Your duty to me, for instance."

"Ichabod, Isobel needs help."

"Help with what?" She said nothing. "Magic spells, I suppose?"

"Magic can do more than you might think. Have you not learned that yet?"

I was exasperated, and found myself taking revenge for her slight on my abilities yesterday. "Sleepy Hollow was filled with people who practiced magic, yet you could not rid yourselves of the Headless Horseman until a man of science, with these methods you take so lightly, came to your aid." My tone was biting.

Hesitantly, she raised one of my hands to her mouth and kissed my scarred palm. Her eyes sought mine. "Yes and if you had not, I would have died that day." There was another searching look before she sighed. "My love, I cannot explain, but please believe." But at the look on my face, her voice trailed off. I dropped her hands and turned away, defeated.

After a silence that seemed painfully long, I went to the door and opened it. Without looking at her, I gestured for her to precede me. She did so. I locked the door and went down the stairs to our bedroom to put on my uniform. I neither looked at nor spoke to her until I was in the foyer and she put a tentative hand on my arm.

"Ichabod cant we put this behind us?"

"Not as long as you are set on this recklessness."

Her fingertips froze on my arm. "Are you going to lock yourself in the laboratory and refuse to speak to me?"

I could hear the tears in her voice. I did not turn my head. "Would that change your mind?"

Her voice was very gentle. "Nothing will change my mind, Ichabod."

I could not bear this coldness between us, even though I wanted to shake her. "Then I shan't bother to hide," I replied wearily. "I have to report for duty. Go talk to David; he's torn between us and utterly miserable, because I cannot help but be angry at him for allowing you to persuade him to help you deceive me."

At any other time, her expression would have melted me. But now my fear for her, my hurt at her stubbornness, and yes, my wounded pride all combined to keep me aloof.

She escorted me to the front door as usual. Once I opened it, I hesitated. At last I dared a glance at her. When I saw her eyes, I could not bear to remain obdurate, not in the face of this sign that my opinion still meant something to her. Even if that something was rather less than I might wish. I leaned over and kissed her cheek, but it was not the same as usual, I knew even without her disappointed look.

I walked to work with dread for my wife's safety forming a cold knot in my stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

I watched Ichabod make his way down the street as if it had been any other morning. Only once he was out of sight could I convince myself that it was not so, for as long as he was in my sight, my eternal hope denied itself surrender. With his departure, the loneliness that I had known since my childhood burst its usually so carefully levied banks. I sank down in the corner rocking chair that had once been my mother's. Nights without number had seen me safely to sleep in her arms to its stilted _creak-CREAK, CREAK-creak _rhythm. I rocked myself into a frenzy of tears.

The events of the night before continued their grim task of ripping my conscience to shreds. How easy it would have been to embrace Ichabod, as it had always been, and erase the horror of his nightmare! But I had allowed the cold fear of rejection to rein my willing arms. Had I tried to hold him, would he have pushed me away? I choked anew, each sob a paroxysm that threatened my ability to hold down breakfast. My fear had been more than confirmed, for when I had reached to take his hand, he had denied me access. Not only had I failed to redeem myself, but I had failed to maintain his presence in our bed. Ichabod did not know it, but I had not slept a wink for the rest of the night on account of the most hair-raising thing he had ever said to me: _"If you're going to continue to go there, I shall probably have to learn to get along without you."  
_

I did not need to ask what he had dreamed. I doubted that even finding me on the bed with my pistol at unmoving fingertips' length would have been as horrifying as what he had seen last night.

I realized that in refusing to share my bitter cup, I had fragmented the entire household. I knew in my heart that someone as fragile as Ichabod could never come to grips with magic such as mine. My mother had warned me that it would mark me for life, had she not? My father had forbidden any mention of it. He was aware that his wife and daughter were the living remnants of a line marked by mysticism, but awareness was enough. However dearly my father had loved my mother and I, he had not loved what we were capable of. He had denounced with childlike fear the benign spells that my mother and I wove just as easily as he had denounced the tales of romance that we both so loved to read. I had married a man just like him.

The solution to our every grief- admitting to Ichabod the full extent of my magical repertoire- was impossible. Ichabod had made that clear enough earlier that morning during the discussion in his laboratory. Every time he had pointed out how much he needed me or feared for my safety, I had yearned to tell him that his fears were in vain. Yet my lips had played me as false as my arms.

As much as I wanted to carry the cross alone, I admitted grudgingly to myself that I could not take full blame for the ugly turn that our seemingly perfect marriage had taken. Ichabod's misbegotten reference to my childhood sweetheart had sealed the argument's fate. Perhaps I had been foolish to assume that Ichabod had seen himself as more than a consolation prize. My tears turned from ones of guilt to ones of mourning. Ichabod was the missing half of my soul that had been lost for so long, and he could not even recognize that the affection I had harbored for Brom was the frivolous innocence that precedes the ravages of true love. I longed to hold a looking glass up to the past, to reflect for Ichabod what nearly every moment alone since the Pickety Witch game that fateful night had been like for me. I had grown colder toward Brom with each passing day. I had spent hours standing on pins and needles while he was out on investigative errands; I had wept over the scuffed-out pentagram that I had drawn so lovingly under his bed. And in those morning hours after lingering by his side, after gently dabbing his bleeding palms until he slept again... I had returned to my own room and collapsed in a heap, winding myself into the sheets, sobbing in bittersweet joy for the sparing of Ichabod's life and for a kiss that had twice failed to come into being. I had bit my knuckles to keep my cries from waking my father in the next room. For those sobs had risen not only out of pained relief, but from a turmoil deep within me that I had not known existed. Then, I dared not imagine where morning might have found us if Ichabod had not been so gravely wounded. Would it have shocked Ichabod to know that he had awakened such a fire in me?

Although my hysterics subsided at length, as did the chair's agitated creak, the sight that met my eyes when I looked up threatened to toss me back into the unforgiving sea. David was standing in the doorway between the living room and dining room, studying me with tragic calm. In one hand he clutched his father's satchel, packed so full that the seams would soon burst. From the other dangled his book strap, each primer and storybook that he had collected carefully fastened in the belt-like closure.

"David, what are you doing?" I demanded uncertainly, hastily wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

"It was a hard decision for me to make, Katrina," David began almost inaudibly, unable to meet my gaze, "but I couldn't. I just couldn't. I know that you and Ichabod both want me to choose whose side I am on."

I felt nauseous. I could not respond. I opened my mouth, and only a sob came out.

"The answer is," David said, taking a deep, determined breath, "my _own_."

"No one ever asked you to take sides!" I cried. "No one! What on _earth_ gave you such a ridiculous idea?"

"I thought it was obvious enough," David whispered, crestfallen.

"Oh, Lord," I sobbed, "dear, dear Lord.... Strike me dead if ever I put such a notion into your head!"

"It was more Ichabod, actually. We talked this morning. He sent me for you, after all."

I stood up even though my legs protested. "What did he say to you?"

"It wasn't what he said to me so much is was what he _didn't _say. Katrina, he won't think this battle is over until he wins it. I saw a side of him that you didn't during the time I worked with him in Sleepy Hollow. He's driven, Katrina, obsessed with being right. Even a little conceited. I... I..." David sobbed guiltily, joining me in tears, "I don't want to turn out like that! And I don't want to turn out as frightened of telling the truth as you are, either!"

He dropped his bags and ran to me. My arms were open to him without my having willed it. We held each other for a long time, sharing a misery too harsh to be spoken. Just as murder begets murder, failure begets failure. I rocked David disconsolately. The boy had seen my flaw and Ichabod's flaw without the benefit of a charm or telepathy. _How far magic has yet to evolve, _I thought, _when it comes to crossing paths with the human spirit!  
_

"If you must go," I said quietly, "at least wait a moment."

David nodded and stood rooted to the spot until I returned with the pistol that I had given him once before. I pressed it into his hand.

"Be more careful with it this time," I cautioned him, my heart breaking. "I'm sure your father has taught you well in self defense. Keep your wits about you, David, and I-" I stopped abruptly, a fresh trickle in my eyes announcing a new inundation- "_I love you._"

David dropped his bags again, collapsing on my shoulder. "I can't do it," he cried. "I can't!"

"Then stay," I said with conviction, the faint smile on my lips unseen to him. "Ichabod and I need you so much. It may be hard to believe that right now, but we do. We adults are the worst fools, David. A child's wisdom, I pray, will be our saving grace."

I helped David unpack his bags and put his books back on the shelf. As long as he believed that he had convinced me that he was running away, his consolation would be complete. And I intended to let him believe as much. I had pulled such a stunt when I was eight, when my father had threatened to destroy the willow switch that I had used to draw in the ashes.

We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon going over his French lesson. When he tired of the verbs _finir _and _detruire_, I made a trip to the butcher's less than a block away to make David's favorite dish for lunch: braised rabbit, enough only for two. I purchased a few Cornish hens for dinner. I did not anticipate Ichabod to have a very large appetite. Even if Ichabod had forbidden me to venture into McRaker's Alley, he had not forbidden me to shop on Raleigh Avenue less than a block away.

After we had eaten, David excused himself politely and went to study the scientific texts that Ichabod had given him. As I cleared away the dishes full of bones picked clean, my thoughts turned to Isobel. I had almost forgotten the silent plea she had made as Ichabod dragged me from her flat. _Something very dear to us has been taken_.

"Something very dear to both of us," I sighed, rubbing one china plate until it shone. I stopped in mid stroke.

_Something very dear to us has been taken!  
_

I realized with shock that Isobel had not been referring to our friendship. She had not been referring to Ichabod's intrusion to end our furtive meeting. She had been referring to something dear to her and Christopher. The twins had been _robbed_.

I dropped the plate into the soapy water, drying my hands hastily. I called for David until he appeared in the kitchen, visibly shaken.

"Katrina, what's wrong? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"Perhaps I have," I muttered, still trying to catch my breath. How was I to resolve Ichabod's orders with a matter that so sorely needed tending? I had an idea. I fished a piece of paper from a drawer of the desk in the hall and scrawled a hasty inquiry:

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _Isobel ~_
> 
> _What has been taken? It is imperative that you let me know. Will explain later, though I know not how. More apologies in regards to yesterday._
> 
> _Fondly,_
> 
> _Katrina_

I folded the note and sealed it. Handing it to David, I said, "Listen closely. Take this to Raleigh Avenue and find a messenger who would be willing to carry this to McRaker's Alley. You know the Magellans' address; see that this messenger marks it as well as he marks the return address." I handed David a small pouch full of coins. "You will find it enough to pay off even the most reluctant of runners. Please, go in haste. I would rather forego a second trip out than be caught by Ichabod with such a correspondence in my hands. Do you still talk to Colin?"

"The boy who lives at the other end of Raleigh? Yes, why?" David replied.

"If for any reason one of Ichabod's coworkers should see you... I know well that Green covers Raleigh after one o'clock.... and should report seeing you, even offhand, to Ichabod... well, we'll have a good reason for you to be sending a message to someone."

David smiled fearfully but took the note willingly. "I'll be back soon," he reassured me. As he took off, I knew for certain whose side he had chosen: the marriage's. He was determined to do for Ichabod and I both whatever it took to save our relationship.

David returned safely enough, and I spent the rest of the afternoon flitting from chore to chore nervously while David resumed his studies. At about four o'clock, there was a knock at the door. I dropped the cloth I had been dusting with, rushing to the door. Finding myself trapped beneath Christopher Magellan's wary violet stare, I backed up a few steps, giving him all the space on our front walk that he cared to have. He handed me a slightly wrinkled piece of parchment that looked as if it had been used and bleached with correcting powder many times.

"Isobel talked me into delivering this," Christopher said expressionlessly. "Don't think I'm ignorant of what happened yesterday. Isobel and I never hide anything from each other, regardless of what conflicting views we might have."

"I would expect that," I said humbly, taking the paper from his outstretched hand. "I apologize if my husband frightened your sister. His anger was targeted at me, not at her. He visited your flat yesterday with benign intent, I am certain. It was pure mischance that he found me there. I am sorry to say so, but you should leave here as soon as you can," I finished, even though I knew full well that Ichabod would not return home for a few more hours.

"So do I," Christopher agreed. He turned on his heel before I could say goodbye. Isobel, too, was in the care of an overly protective man. The only difference was, she was in greater need of guardianship than I. I sat down in the rocking chair, unfolding the note slowly. It read:

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _Dear Katrina,_
> 
> _My prayer is that Christopher did not read this, as I asked him to kindly to refrain from doing so. My guess is that you will know whether he did or not the instant he opens his mouth. Regardless, the answer to your question is the Sanskrit tablet. It went missing two days before you last glimpsed me in the marketplace prior to our meeting face to face. I kept it locked in a strongbox beneath the floorboards. I opened the locked box and found it missing. Katrina, I am so afraid. I know that your magic is the only key to such a dizzying paradox as this. I beg you, plead with your husband on my behalf._
> 
> _Much apprehension and faith,_
> 
> _I.M._

I slumped in the rocking chair, crumpling the note in my trembling hands. This could not be happening to me; it simply could not. Just when I had resolved to place even a whit more faith in my husband's pleas, a plea just as strong arrived to oppose me. I quickly built a small fire in the hearth and burned Isobel's note to ashes. The rising smoke burned its contents into my memory. I did not know what to do. No, that is a lie. I _did_ know what to do. But I still lacked the courage to do it.

Dinner was almost ready when Ichabod arrived home. My heart skipped a beat at the sound of his approach. I steeled my hands as I transferred a pot of boiling water to drain in the sink.

"How was... How was your day?" I asked absurdly, not turning to look Ichabod in the eye even though I knew he was hovering hesitantly a few paces behind me.

"Nothing extraordinary. Routine duty," Ichabod replied briefly, tension ebbing and receding in his tone as if it could not decide whether to go or stay. "And yours?"

I lowered the pot carefully into the sink, turning to face him slowly. I met his uncertain gaze and forced a tiny smile to dance on the corners of my lips. "I rescued a runaway, for one," I said with faint amusement.

Ichabod arched an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"David," I said more seriously, resolved to improve upon that which the boy had found lacking in me. "He had his bags packed this morning less than an hour after you left."

"_Why?_" Ichabod demanded with feeling, pulling out a chair to sit because his legs would no longer support him.

"Because he was convinced that you and I demand that he declare his loyalty. Rather than do so, he chose allegiance to himself."

Ichabod looked as if I'd slapped him again. I found the courage to trap one of his hands firmly against the table with my own.

"It is proof enough that we both have been fools, is it not?"

"Yes," he said through clenched teeth, for the first time struggling to fight off tears in my presence. I let go of his hand.

"Can you no longer weep in my sight?" I asked, hurt. "Am I that much of a stranger to you?"

"Not so much as I am now a stranger to myself!" he cried, burying his face in his arms against the tabletop. Without hesitation this time, I embraced him from behind- even if my touch was faintly reticent.

"Then I beg you, let me make your acquaintance, if that is not too much to ask," I said quietly, rubbing his back. Ichabod shook his head hopelessly. I sighed. I would have to tell another truth.

"There is something that Isobel told me yesterday that I think you should know. I think it might be significant."

Ichabod looked up suddenly. "Relevant to the case?" he asked, determination shining through his despair.

"I don't know. An artifact left to them by their father has been stolen. A Sanskrit tablet, possibly even more valuable than the sentimental price they place on it."

"How was the flat broken into? A smashed window? Was the door tampered with?"

"That is the problem, Ichabod," I said hesitantly. "No one broke in. The tablet disappeared from inside a locked box."

Ichabod muttered something that I took to be a curse and rose from the table. His finger lit against my cheek briefly as if to return the light consolation that I had bestowed upon him, but he turned away abruptly.

"This case makes less sense with each passing day," Ichabod sighed wearily. "I will be in the laboratory. When dinner is ready, let me know."

"I certainly will," I acquiesced, my heart sinking. I felt as if I deserved the faceful of steam that rose up from the sink to greet me. I was left alone once more. And for coming clean for once in my life. I, too, cursed, knowing that full admission would be my only saving grace.

The three of us ate (for the most part) civilly. David made no mention of his runaway episode to Ichabod, nor did Ichabod mention it to him. A few terse comments were made in the course of the meal, however, that led to some unwarranted snapping. As I had predicted, more food was thrown away than eaten. Ichabod had quickly retreated to the laboratory upon finishing. Strangely enough, David had followed. I wondered if the boy didn't have a small speech prepared for Ichabod, too.

For the second night in a row I dressed for bed in an empty room. I took a seat at the bay window and stared out across the rooftops for a long while. Indeed, it could have been a far worse day than it had turned out to be. At least Ichabod and I were speaking. As if to confirm this small wonder, Ichabod's voice broke my reverie. I had nearly fallen asleep with my arms dangling out the window.

"Katrina, come to sleep before you catch a chill," he scolded with undisguised concern, moving toward me gradually. I stood, yawning.

"If you promise you won't run away, then I shall," I said.

Ichabod took me in his arms reluctantly, as though he feared I might break. I tingled with hope through and through at the touch of his lips against my forehead.

"You have my word."

We retired quietly, exchanging few words. I knew that I had put a damper on Ichabod's chances of immediate forgiveness by mentioning the Magellans again. But I could not have avoided it. He had the right to know.

We tossed and turned in the dark, both of us sure that we did not want to sleep back to back again, yet each of us in our turn deciding to turn our back on the other. I was dimly aware, as I drifted off to sleep facing the window, that Ichabod's arm crept furtively around my waist and settled there for the night.

 

*

 

I would have given much to have restored Katrina's good opinion of me by returning that evening with the mystery solved, but none of my continuing inquiries bore fruit. To make matters worse, the High Constable told me in no uncertain terms to stop wasting time on a case that had already been solved. I explained the physical evidence that eliminated St. James as a suspect for the hundredth time, but of course I was ignored. If my own wife has no respect for my methods, why should anyone else?

The evening at home was awkward. All three of us were trying far too hard to be civil, and every other sentence included some ill-chosen word that made the latent quarrel burst out again. The bread had been cooked for about ten seconds too long, or at least she believed so, and she murmured an off-hand apology for it. That set me off.

"Really, Katrina, you make the most heartfelt apologies for burning bread or dropping onion rings, and then you risk your neck without a qualm," I snapped. A tense silence followed, and I finally tried to mend matters by mumbling, "The bread is fine." Nor was I the only one lashing out at unexpected moments. Thus went the entire meal.

I even had to endure a lecture from David afterwards in my laboratory. It took me half an hour to assure him that I had never intended to make him take sides. It was not easy, considering how frustrated I was with Katrina's folly which had caused my simple request to end up tearing the boy two ways. I did the best I could in my turmoil to reassure him, and to apologize. I ended by spending an hour discussing the chemistry book he was reading with him, and I think such blessedly rational concerns eased the friction between us. I even remembered to praise his quick grasp of the basic concepts. Katrina has prodded me many times to praise the boy, claiming that my approval is paramount to him, and his expression when I do suggests that she must be right, amazingly enough. But then, had someone avenged my mother's death, would my small world not have revolved around him?

And that night I would have given all to be able to forget everything in Katrina's embrace, but we could not even look at each other as we prepared for bed. Nor did we put our arms around each other when we lay down. Even as we lay, side by side but not touching, I found myself thinking how absurd this was. Both of us wished to reach out, I knew this perfectly well, but neither of us could. But when I heard her breathing grow even and I knew that she was asleep, I could bear it no longer; I turned and slowly encircled her waist with my arm.

But I had the same nightmare that night, about what could happen to her in McRaker's Alley. I awoke crying out, as usual. Then I collapsed back onto my pillow, trying to breathe.

Without a word, she moved closer and put her arms around me. I did not resist; I could not have. After the constraint of the previous day and a half, her embrace was an almost painful relief. But it was not her usual warm, unreserved embrace. There have been no other women in my life; I had no basis of comparison by which to know just how precious her complete offering of herself had been, until it was withdrawn.

We lay motionless in each others arms until we fell asleep again. Neither of us had spoken a word.

Breakfast went much the same way as dinner the previous night, though with fewer flare-ups. When I was preparing to leave for duty, she whispered, "You are still angry with me, arent you?"

She looked so woebegone. If our disagreement had been anything else in the world, I should have surrendered at once. I sighed and put my arms around her gingerly. "Do you still intend to go to that place?" Her silence answered my question. "Then yes, I am still angry with you," I said, and kissed her forehead before departing into the rainy morning.

Did she not realize what she was doing to me? This was the second day that I was forced to try to function through this mingling of fear, anger and hurt. It was so painful that my normal jitters and squeamishness would have seemed a reprieve. I was certain that I could not endure this for long and live.

I was hardly prepared for the news that awaited me at the watch house. Constable Green was the one who made the announcement.

"I never dreamed I would say this, but  you were right, Crane!"

I stopped and glanced around at my fellow constables warily. Such words are so uncharacteristic that I promptly expected a prank of some sort.

"We found Gabriel Erickson's real murderer," Green explained.

"Who is he?"

"Lunatic came in and confessed. We found the weapon in his house, right where he said itd be. Some kind of old-time mace, with spikes all over it."

"You mean to say it was not a gunshot wound?" I asked with mock astonishment.

"Aw, come off it, Crane."

"What is this suspects motivation?" I demanded.

Everyone guffawed. "His motivation is, _he's a lunatic!_ Same as yours!"

I sighed. "Then you released August St. James?"

"Last night." Before I could frame another question, he added, "Witherspoon tells me you brought a beauty of a country coquette with you from the back of beyond."

The gnawing physical pain of fear for her promptly made its way back to the forefront of my consciousness. "Indeed I did."

"I dont believe it. What would a beautiful girl want with a faint-hearted lunatic?"

"A womans heart is a mystery," I retorted. Perhaps that was just it, after all: she had wanted a husband who would be easy to bully. I forced my mind back to my work. "Where is the new suspect?"

Green jerked a thumb in the direction of the cells, and my stomach began to churn. I hate going down there.

I moved toward the cells, trying to seem purposeful. I felt a slight touch at my side and whirled. Green was holding my pistol, which he had snatched from its holster. He dangled it from two fingers, grinning. Green is half a head taller than me, and considerably brawnier. I sighed and turned back to the cells impatiently. I was not going to be drawn into his game.

The new suspect was indeed deranged. He had a vacant grin and a wide-eyed stare that fixed on one most disturbingly. He gloated about the murders he had committed. The things he said almost had me contributing to the filth on the cell floor.

I emerged into the light and the cleaner air with relief. Green shoved my gun at me with an irritating smirk. I took it brusquely and asked after the lunatics address.

I shall not dwell on what I found in his one-room flat. It was in a neighborhood Katrina would not doubt have enjoyed as much as she did McRaker's Alley. The flat held numerous weapons, none so exotic as the mace, but all horrifying, and many stained with dried blood. There were also other items I need not list, souvenirs of other murders. And so it seemed the case was closed. At least one problem could be taken off my list.

Before the day was over, I received a message from Joseph Hawke.

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _Constable Crane—_
> 
> _Kindly call on me at your earliest convenience. I have a matter of importance to discuss with you._
> 
> _—Colonel Joseph Hawke_

It was still raining drearily and steadily as I made my way to Hawke's before returning home. I was glad enough to put off facing another awkward evening of sitting on top of the powder keg at home. I half hoped that he was going to confirm my suspicions of Colonel Dorn. But then, perhaps my suspicions of Dorn had been unfounded. Perhaps he was merely gloating over the coincidental misfortune of two rivals.

"Constable!" This time Hawke rose as I entered, now that I knew the shameful secret of his height. The fact was, it merely increased my liking of him. I shook his hand respectfully.

"Colonel Hawke," I said, slightly emphasizing his new rank. "I was intrigued by your message."

"You were meant to be. Shall we?" He indicated the more comfortable chairs by the fireplace, and we left the desk and straight chairs where we had conducted our previous interview. We settled down with no desk between us. I am unused to camaraderie, and it was strangely comfortable.

A manservant appeared, and Hawke asked me what I wanted to drink. I knew he was offering me liquor, but I said, "I prefer tea, if you do not mind. Alcohol clouds the mind." I did not add that my stomach had very little tolerance for alcohol, or that I had been able to eat very little in the last couple of days.

"A mind like yours should be kept clear," he answered respectfully.

I was flattered. I have never doubted my own worth, but others ability to see it, yes. "You seem to have formed that opinion on very little information."

"I have seen enough. And that is why I am asking for your assistance on a very delicate matter."

I leaned forward. My spirits lifted at the prospect of a challenge I was capable of meeting. "I am at your service." But a yawn broke my last words. He laughed, and I apologized, "Do excuse me. I did not sleep well."

He glanced at my wedding band, still conspicuously new, then at me. His brows lifted almost imperceptibly. I felt myself flushing slightly, but he was so subtle and so respectfully amiable that his silent implication did not offend me.

I managed a faint smile. "Actually, we were quarreling." For a second, that gnawing mixture of excruciating emotions gripped me again. It was never far below the surface.

My face must have looked rather grave, because Hawke asked with gentle amusement, "Did you think that you would never quarrel?"

I forced myself to smile again. "I suppose not."

He leaned forward with a confidential air. "You didn't really believe that husbands are the head of any household, did you? Were under their pretty little thumbs, all of us. Our only leverage lies in trying to stop them from learning it." He chuckled. "Which means very carefully choosing the occasions on which you put your foot down."

I glanced at his ring finger, which was bare. He noticed. "Always detecting," he chided. "I'm a widower. But Im about to put my neck in the noose once more."

"Congratulations."

He acknowledged this casually, and I could not help but remember my own stammering, pleased embarrassment during my brief engagement. I could hardly imagine Hawke feeling shy over anything.

"Cheer up, Constable. Every couple has their spats, and they always blow over." He grinned. "Just as soon as we admit that were wrong."

I had to make an effort to smile, but his words were encouraging, lending a little perspective to the volcanic eruption I had survived. Perhaps he was right, perhaps I was taking it all too much to heart and in a few days we would be back to normal. It was our first real quarrel, after all, so perhaps that made it seem worse than it truly was.

But the thought of McRaker's Alley loomed dark and foreboding in my mind.

"I did something foolish," I confessed, suddenly glad to be able to talk to someone who had no stake in my troubles and thus could not be hurt or offended. "I brought up her childhood sweetheart."

He smiled wisely. "Ah. We never stop being jealous of their first infatuations, do we?"

"I suppose not."

"Anyhow, you're the one she married."

I looked out the window and nodded. I saw no need to explain that death had removed my chief rival from the contest.

He clapped me on the shoulder, just as the manservant returned with port for him and strong tea for me. "Dont fret, Crane. When she cools down, shell be flattered you're still jealous. Take it from a veteran, Constable: _never_ let a woman think you're not jealous."

I nodded briefly and took a swallow of tea. It was still too hot to drink, but I needed the stimulation of it. I brought us back to the purpose of my visit as soon as the servant had departed.

"What is this delicate matter?"

He looked serious. It was clear from his long pause that he was going to tell me something very grave for him. "I suspect that two of my acquaintances are breaking the law."

"Why?"

"First I must explain. Aside from this one irregularity, they are good men, Crane. If they are guilty, I would prefer to confront them with the proof privately and give them the opportunity to mend their ways without losing their good names."

"In other words, you wish me not to arrest them."

He looked me in the eye. "Not unless they refuse to stop of their own accord, at least."

"Have you confronted them with your suspicions?"

"What if I am wrong? How could I insult their honor so? That is why I need proof."

I set my jaw. "Colonel Hawke, I will investigate and allow you your chance to persuade your friends to mend their ways. But if your persuasion is useless, I must follow the dictates of my conscience."

His eyes settled on me admiringly. "I would never expect anything else from a man like you, Crane."

"What do you suspect?"

He squared his shoulders. "I suspect that Colonel Dorn and Senator Trevayne are misappropriating government funds."

"Tell me what leads you to believe this."

We spent another hour discussing his suspicions. I left with a promise to look into it, on my own account, not as a constable.

The rain had slackened, but the streets were muddy. I considering hailing a cab, but my inner turmoil demanded movement, so I walked home. At first I considered Hawke's concern. His case appeared refreshingly straightforward, non-violent, unghostly. Being able to exercise my mind on such a case would be a relief.

But something else kept nudging the embezzlement case out of my head. Not just the turmoil over Katrina's caprice, either. It was something about the new solution to the Erickson case that had so unexpectedly presented itself.

I knew this feeling. Something nagged in the back of my mind. It meant that I had not fully comprehended the significance of one of the facts. But reviewing them all in my mind did not yield any answers. Generally the answers to such puzzles come unbidden, unexpectedly, not through constant brooding. With annoyance I put it out of my mind.

I arrived at Karrigan Square eager to dry off. I stopped only a couple of steps inside the door to pull off my boots so that I would not track mud all over the floor. I had scarcely begun to tug at the first boot when my eye fell on the prints I had already made.

There was something something about footprints.

I froze. Katrina came into the foyer to tentatively kiss me. I put an arm around her absently, my eyes focused intently on nothing. She peered at me inquiringly.

"My God."

"What is it?"

I began to pace before I answered. "There was only one set of footprints!"

Distantly I noticed her wince as she glanced at the mess my boots were making, but like the patient wife she usually is, she said only, "What are you talking about?"

I kept pacing. "That lunatic is indubitably a murderer, but he did not murder Gabriel Erickson." I added absently, "I'll clean it up." Had it not been for her reluctance to say anything unpleasant in the aftermath of our quarrel, I am certain I should never have gotten away with muddying the floor that way.

"That is all right. What lunatic?"

"A lunatic confessed to the murder of Gabriel Erickson. August St. James was released. In the lunatics home, I found  well, never mind. But while he must be guilty of several murders, he is not guilty of this one."

"Why do you think so?"

"He left no footprints."

"Unlike you," she teased. "Shall I subject you to onion torture to make you tell me what in heavens name you are talking about?"

Something in the back of my head noted that my focus on detection had eased the edginess between us. But most of me was concentrated on what I had discovered.

"When I arrived at the crime scene, the only footprints were St. James. He went into the room where Erickson was, got Erickson's blood on his shoes, walked down the hallway and out the door to summon a constable, and then walked back down the hall to show them where the body was. Those were the only bloody footprints in the hall when I arrived. There should have been some left by the murderer. None of us was able to leave that room without getting blood on our shoes." I found myself shuddering at the memory.

"Then August St. James did commit the murder?"

"How often do I have to say it?" I was not truly speaking to her, but to my own thoughts. "He could not have. There was no blood on his clothes, no weapon, no motive." My voice dropped as I added to myself, "No interruption of the bloodstains." I started for the sitting room and my desk, but caught myself in time and pulled off my boots before they could do further damage. Striding to the desk, I called, "_David!_ Where are you?"

He appeared, holding one of the scientific texts I had loaned him. "Yes, sir?"

"Go outside. Find a hackney to deliver a message."

"I could deliver it," he offered.

"No, this message is going to McRaker's Alley. You are not going there when there are no reckless females to chaperone."

His eyes met Katrina's briefly before he left at a run as I pulled out a sheet of paper. Katrina came to stand beside the desk. "What is this about?"

"I am going to ask your friends the Magellans to perform another séance for me," I explained, beginning to write the letter. "In fact, that was why I went there the other day."

Her eyes widened incredulously. "You want _another_ séance?"

"There is something very wrong with the séance they performed for the Ericksons. Katrina, there is no way I can think of that that murder could have been committed, yet it was, I saw the scene. Which means that, in all probability." I grew cold and had to steel myself to continue. "That the assassin was _not_ a man of flesh and blood."

She looked at me, faintly shocked, before putting a hand on my shoulder. "Shall we ask them if they can do it tonight?"

I looked up from the letter and raised an eyebrow. _"We?"_

Up went her chin. "Of course I am going with you."

"Absolutely not!" I declared. These words were exactly as effective as they usually are.

"You gave me permission to"

"Do not remind me of that!" I snapped. "I did indeed, but you know perfectly well _why_ I did so. I certainly am not going to _take_ you to that hellish place again."

"Ichabod, magic is _my_ province. I cant let you meddle in it without me to look after you."

"You will not permit _me _to look after _you_," I said shortly as I wrote.

"Do you think they would perform another séance for you? After their previous encounters with you?"

I cursed silently. She was right, as always. Almost always.

"But because Isobel _needs_ you, she will do it for you?" I inquired with asperity, turning. Katrina held my eyes silently. I brooded for a moment, then crumpled the letter I had started and stood up. "Sit down." I held the chair for her. When she picked up the pen, I instructed, "Ask your good friend Isobel Magellan if tomorrow night, she would be so good as to _come here _and perform a séance for us."

At those words she turned her head quickly to look at me.

"Tell her well pay for the cab. And I shall try to get back their Sanskrit tablet," I added.

With a slight smile, she nodded and wrote the letter with my request. A moment later, David came in with the news that he had found a messenger. We entrusted the note to the man. Then Katrina and I both set to cleaning my muddy footprints off the foyer hall, each of us refusing the others help and each refusing to leave it. In spite of the remaining contest between us, we were almost comfortable again.

 

*

 

Isobel's reply arrived later that evening, but this time, Christopher did not deliver it. The message arrived in the hands of the same runner through whom I had sent my own. Ichabod looked up expectantly as I claimed a seat beside him on the sofa. I unfolded the note and read:

 

 

 

 

 

> _Dear Katrina, _

> _I had not expected to hear from you again so soon. I must admit that the arrival of your request made my night! I am anxious to be of service to you, as I cannot shake the feeling that our causes are not so far from one and the same. Expect us at eight o'clock tomorrow evening. I confess that it was the offer of paid cab fare and your husband's assistance in the tablet matter that sealed Christopher's complicity, for he was quite adamantly against performing a séance outside our own domain (let alone one for you, I am ashamed to say!) Please forgive my brother's obstinance as willingly as I forgive your husband's._
> 
> _Most hopeful regards,_  
>  _ I.M._

I adroitly omitted the lines between "tomorrow evening" and "Most hopeful regards." I pursed my lips a little too quickly, folding the note in my lap with unsteady hands. I had not expected such a personal reply. But then again, I should have. Isobel had more than proved her sentimentality in the previous day's correspondence. Ichabod gave me a quizzically suspicious look.

"What does she mean by 'Ihad not expected to hear from you again so soon' ?" Ichabod asked tersely, his word-for-word recitation of Isobel's opening tightening the bolts on my conscience.

"Exactly that. I sent her a message yesterday," I confessed.

"You probably delivered it yourself," Ichabod replied with contempt.

"That is _not_ true!" I shot back indignantly. "I did the same thing that you did this afternoon! I sent Joshua to Raleigh Avenue to fetch a courier."

"How can I be sure that you're not lying?"

I glared, knotting my fingers together in my lap for fear that I might slap him again. "How can I convince you that I am not?" I implored.

Ichabod heaved a remorseful sigh. "Very well," he muttered, still far from giving up his interrogation. "What matter was so pressing that you found it necessary to contact her?"

"The tablet."

Ichabod's eyes narrowed. "I thought that matter had been established prior to my intrusion on your little tête-à-tête?"

"It had!" I blurted helplessly, not daring to imagine what Ichabod would think if he knew how Isobel had actually transmitted the piece of information to me. "And had not.... Oh, Ichabod, can you believe me? She was quite disturbed. How would you feel if you had been the victim of a thief for whom a lock is not an obstacle?"

Ichabod looked away. "Forget that I made an issue of it," he sighed, but continued in direct contradiction of himself. "Did she send a reply?"

"Yes. Before you arrived home yesterday."

"May I see it?"

I froze, feeling the color drain from my cheeks. "Yes," I said quietly, "if you do not mind getting soot all over your hands again."

Ichabod stared at the fireplace for a long time.

"Why does every piece of evidence that you get your hands on end up as ashes?" he demanded coldly.

"Because," I whispered, memories full to the brim with emptiness flooding my soul, "fire has been the only living thing to warm me when I am truly alone. It never reviled the spells that I scrawled into the remnants of its death. It consumed without contempt or protest every secret grief that I fed it." I added bitterly, "Ironic, that witches are most often put to death by that which they confide in most."

I gave Ichabod a searching look, but he only glanced down at his hands with tear-filled eyes. He would never know how much I longed to tell him until he could look the matter- the matter of _me_\- in the face.

"The note is... not important," Ichabod murmured in a strained voice.

"Do I hurt you that much?" I asked plaintively.

"No," Ichabod said, pained. "But certain things about you do."

He embraced me briefly with great discomfiture, as if the wound in his shoulder had suddenly reopened. He did not say another word as he left the room, moving quickly up the stairs.

I was left alone to cry again, but my tears were not as convulsive as before. This grief was deeper, more sentient. We could not survive much longer like this. Another day? Perhaps. But another three, or four? I could not bear it that my husband would rather hide in his laboratory like a wounded animal than face the fact that I was finally ready to confess the full scope of my abilities.

In a roundabout way, I had offered to tell him. I had even bared my loneliness before his disbelieving eyes. And he had refused not only to listen, but to _look_.

"There are certain things about you that hurt me, too," I said to the vacant, ash-strewn fireplace.

What kind of a witch fails to rise as a phoenix from the ashes of her own defeat?

For that matter, what kind of a _wife_?

 

*

 

Alas, the interval of comparative ease between us was not to last. When we received the reply to our message, I discovered that she had been in communication with Isobel Magellan the day before, and I could not leave off cross-examining her. Naturally our tempers started to flare again, and before I knew it I had accused her of lying to me. She responded, not by continuing to try to smooth the quarrel over, but to expand it by dragging in other matters that had long annoyed her, such as my reluctance to hear about her blasted hocus-pocus. For the entirety of our marriage she had seemed quite content to skirt the topic, knowing of my dislike of such things. And now she suddenly claimed to have been deeply hurt by my simple avoidance of it, as if her charms and potions could compare in importance to her wanton endangerment of herself. I was not about to open a new quarrel. Especially I did not wish to risk finding that violent rage welling up in me again. There was nothing for it but retreat, to my laboratory that was seeming less of a haven and more of a prison each passing day.

While we had waited for the Magellans' reply, I had begun a list of questions in my ledger to ask the spirit of Gabriel Erickson. In my laboratory I continued with the list for a few minutes before finding myself folding my arms on the table and lowering my head onto them. Tears trickled slowly from my eyes.

For the last six months, I had experienced more happiness every day with her than I had expected to have in my entire life. This bounty of Fate had only made me greedy for more. I could not endure to see the only true blessing of my life destroyed, even though she was determined to destroy it.

The fact was, no moment of my life was complete without her, or had been since the Pickety Witch had caught my face and my heart. As always, I had been keeping to the edges, trying to stay in the shadows. But she had broken through her charmed circle to come to me, to bestow her blessing upon me.

_"Your pardon, Miss, I am only a stranger."  
_

Had she sensed the loneliness in my soul through her blindfold? Was that what gained me that kiss on account? Or was it only her playful whimsy?

Forever after that, her presence had been the suns light and warmth for me. The peace of my mind was at an end, and my only study had been how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of my host. I had listed suspects and analyzed clues while dreaming of her all-seeing eyes and gentle voice. Scarcely had I laid eyes on her before she had broken my heart, because it had been clear that she was bespoke already, to a man who seemed quite willing and able to break me in half if I so much as spoke to her.

Yet I had not been able to stop myself from hopelessly dreaming, and cherishing the moments of her time I was able to snatch. That night I found her reading _The Knights of the Round Table_ was the night I knew that I was going to have to propose in time, however hopeless my suit. In her innocence, she had trusted that I would not take advantage of that unchaperoned meeting, nor had I. But had she known what I was thinking, seeing her in her nightdress and dressing gown  I found myself imagining that she was my wife, that I had a right to see her thus. Having begun these imprudent musings, I soon had to exert all my willpower to refrain from crushing her in my arms and kissing her till we could not breathe.

Ironic that on our wedding night, when I actually had the right to do exactly that, I could scarcely bring myself to look at her. I was desperate to make her happy, and I had no idea how to do so. When she had entered the room, wearing that same blue brocade dressing gown, I had stared at the floor and begun to stammer something, I think an apology in advance for my own uncertainty. But she had come toward me without hesitation and stopped my words by placing her fingertips gently on my lips. At the touch, all my nervousness had evaporated and I had known exactly what to do, as if not I but some more powerful force was directing every move we each made. I had begun by kissing the fingers that were brushing my mouth, and even that small contact had been so intense that I could scarcely endure it. And that bliss did not end that night, but continued through many, many nights of white magic since.

I had to find a way to put us back to where we had been. But she was the one who held all the power in this struggle. I had ordered, reasoned and pleaded. I would have surrendered anything to mend this, but it was she who insisted on risking her life and my happiness.

The only way out I could think of was to find that Sanskrit tablet on which the Magellans put such a high value. Once they had it back, presumably the girl medium would no longer need my wife so urgently, and without such a strong tug to her heartstrings, I thought I could prevail upon her to act out of compassion for me instead of this stranger.

With a course of action set, I lifted my head and jotted a few quick notes on a new page of my ledger about how to proceed in the matter of the tablet. I noticed that it was late. I had a great deal to do the following day, and the sooner I found the tablet the sooner my present misery  and that of my two charges  would end. I felt calmer now that I had a plan. Perhaps I could sleep.

Katrina was already in bed, lying quietly, the room dark. I moved softly as I prepared for bed, not wishing to wake her if she were asleep. But suddenly a sound broke the silence, a shuddering breath quickly stifled.

All my obduracy instantly faded. I did not speak, but silently lay beside her and wrapped my arms around her. For a second she pulled against me, as if she were going to scorn my embrace, but then she burst into tears and buried her face in my shoulder.

I sighed, holding her, stroking her sunlit hair. There had been very few occasions on which I had been the consoler. Her hands clutched at me desperately, as if _I_ were the one who might disappear.

After sobbing for quite a while, she caught her breath enough to say, "I thought you were going to sleep up there."

I decided to tell a half-truth that might comfort her. "Of course not. I was taking notes about how to find that Sanskrit tablet."

She lifted her head to look at me in the very faint light before burrowing in my shoulder again. "Thank you," she whispered.

I thought about asking if she would stay out of that hellish neighborhood once I had found it, but decided to wait until I had succeeded. Gratitude might make her more receptive to my request then.

She was still weeping, but more quietly now. I kissed her forehead sadly; I have not been able to kiss her mouth since finding her in the Magellans' tenement.

"Katrina, everyone under this roof is miserable. Is your stubbornness so great? You could end all this with a word." At this she only cried harder.

"I wish I could!" she gasped a minute later. "But it would take so many words, too many, and you dont want to." And she went back to wordless sobs, until she cried herself to sleep in my arms. I lay awake for a long time, with my wife lying in my arms and more distant from me than she had ever been.

Katrina seemed to think that the Magellans' case was far more baffling than it truly was, but of course, this was my province as magic was hers. Lock-pickers are a dime a dozen in a place like McRaker's Alley. Obviously someone had known of the twins strongbox and had crept in while they were out to pick the lock and make off with the artifact. The only thing that troubled me was that there had been no sign of forced entry, but further inquiries when I spoke with the Magellans should clear that up. It should be a simple enough matter to track down the fences who dealt in such curios, and a Sanskrit tablet was sufficiently rare that locating it should not be a difficulty. The following day at work I made a few inquiries about fences who might handle such artifacts. There were quite a few who were known to frequent McRaker's Alley; one of the shadiest, I noticed with distaste, was a priest. I could not do much more before I had a chance to question the twins about the item.

My next task was to make discreet inquiries about Colonel Dorn and Senator Trevayne. Trevayne, certainly, seemed to be living a bit beyond his means, and was known to love ostentation. I looked into his political record and found that his votes in the Congress seemed to have little consistency with each other, though he had ardently supported the brief fad for sumptuary laws a few years ago. His shifting policies made me wonder what he gained by them. He might be guilty of accepting bribes as well as embezzlement.

At the watch house at the end of the day, I was summoned for another lecture from the High Constable about wasting time gathering evidence. I was fool enough to leave my ledger in the outer room while I answered the summons. He and I argued for an hour, following the familiar routes we had already covered many times before, he unable to make me give in, I unable to make him acknowledge the falsehoods behind his outdated notions. When he grew bored with this oft-replayed debate, he dismissed me. I emerged to see my ledger gone from the table where I had left it.

I groaned inwardly. "Wheres Green?" I asked of the room in general. When my things make temporary absences, usually Green is responsible.

Everyone snickered. "Gone home for some very dull reading."

"What, he can read?" I retorted acidly as I hurried for the door. Witherspoon stopped me with a hand clamped on my shoulder.

"Dont bother, Crane. He's long gone. Youll just have to get along without it tonight."

I cursed briefly, violently. This was not the first time Green had amused himself by "borrowing" my possessions, and he invariably tossed them back to me the following day, generally in good condition. The ledger had nothing of a personal nature in it  Katrina's peek at my ledger in Sleepy Hollow had cured me of _that_ habit  so I feared no embarrassment. And I could most likely remember all the questions I had for the Magellans  and for Gabriel Erickson. It was simply mortification that I could not even stop my fellows from stealing my possessions that made me spit such words.

Witherspoon made a face of mock reproach. "Now, Crane! What would your pretty little golden-haired lass think if she heard you?"

"She would probably turn you all into toads," I retorted, and left without another word. I would have time to write out my questions again before the Magellans arrived at Karrigan Square.

 

*

 

I was awakened by a headache so fierce that it was agony to simply move my head from side to side. I gasped as the morning sunlight plunged needle-like into my squinting eyes, cried out as corresponding streaks of pain shot through my temples. I extended a lethargic arm in either direction. I was alone. Ichabod had risen long ago, leaving me to sleep in. I groped for the other pillow, pulling it over my throbbing head. The scent of Ichabod's hair lingered upon it, mocking me with each breath I took in the suffocating whiteness.

I had never been so miserable in my life.

At length, the pillow grew stuffy, and the pain in my head was no less. I shoved the pillow away with all the strength of an invalid, wincing as I opened my eyes for the second time. My brief attempt to sit up was awarded by a sick wave of dread that forced me to lie back down. I moaned into my own pillow. The madness of our quarrel had reduced me to physical illness. Feeling irrationally childish, I snatched Ichabod's spare alarm bell off the bedside table and rang it until the sound fused with the vacuous ache in my head. David's pale, worried face appeared in the sliver of hallway that I could see through the cracked door, as I had hoped it would.

"Are you all right?" he asked hesitantly.

"No," I whimpered, dropping the bell back onto the table with slack fingers. "I don't think I can get up."

"You're sick, then?" David asked, his voice fret with concern.

"I think so."

David hung in the hall a few moments more before timidly crossing the threshold. He had entered this room only on brief, perfunctory errands such as fetching Ichabod's ledger. It was a strange, hallowed territory to him, a sort of inner sanctum. I could not have been more pleased with his obedience had he been my son by birth. But all that I wanted was human contact- _any_ human contact. I beckoned him to my bedside, grateful that I was wearing not only a modest nightgown, but also a robe. I had unaccountably caught a chill the night before. My guess is that it was from anticipating on Ichabod not coming to bed. Thankfully, he had.

"Can I get you something?" David said with anxiety.

When I looked at him, finally, standing there with sad dark eyes focused fearfully upon me, his hands folded pitifully in front of him, I realized how foolish I was being. Regardless of how terrible I felt, it was no excuse to frighten a child out of his wits. I sat up groggily, feeling the pain rush from my head to my limbs. My blood was molten lead.

"Just... Just put a kettle on to boil," I said. "If I woke you, I'm-"

"Oh, no," David reassured me quickly, and with embarrassment I realized that he was dressed. "I've been awake since Ichabod left. We had breakfast together."

"What time was that?"

"About a quarter 'til eight, I think."

I glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. _Eleven!  
_

I struggled to free myself from the bedclothes. "Forgive me," I mumbled, "I should have been up hours ago."

David's reflexes proved to be quick. He caught me as I stumbled out of bed.

"Is it your stomach?"

"No," I laughed derisively, "my head."

David looked at me in renewed concern. "That means you probably cried yourself to sleep," he blurted before he could stop himself. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he muttered, "Nothing. Katrina, I'm-"

"Why are you sorry? You have no need to be. You're absolutely right," I replied candidly, marveling at his astute judgment. I sat down on the bed at his bidding.

"You're still fighting, aren't you?" David asked, crestfallen. "I saw that Ichabod didn't stay in the laboratory again last night. I thought maybe that was a good sign."

"Good and not so good," I sighed, shutting my eyes against that passing of a shadow that never once fails to brighten the sun in its wake. "Lord, but it hurts!"

"Your head or Ichabod?"

"Both. But I meant my head."

David's eyes brightened. "I could get you some laudanum! Ichabod has some in the attic." David's face fell as quickly as his eyes had been illuminated. "But it's locked."

I laughed- honestly laughed- for the first time in days. "Thank you, but painkiller or no, more sleep is the last thing that I need right now."

"Do you want the water for tea?"

"Yes. A special kind of tea. One that will make my head stop hurting without dulling my wits."

"You need a miracle," David said glumly, and I knew that he was no longer talking about my headache.

"What I need is a husband who will listen to me. Come on. Help me down the stairs, put the water on, and I'll show you how to make a miracle."

As we descended the stairs, something my mother used to say came to mind: "If the head says no, then the limbs will likely follow. The trick is, _katjie_, to make them say yes. Four to one is a strong vote." _Katjie_, my mother used to call me in her lilting Dutch. _Kitten_. Such an odd nickname for the willful child that I was!

David was enchanted by the simple brew that I taught him. He asked me the name and use of each herb that I added to the water before I had the chance to tell him.

"Do you know what I can't stand more than anything else?" David mused thoughtfully.

"What?" I asked, intrigued. I stirred the herbs in my teacup patiently.

"Seeing people sick or in pain."

David smiled intently as he spoke. In that instant, the depths of his gaze yielded up a shadow of things yet to come. The combining of anatomy, chemistry, the healer's art, and classical language.... I marveled at this revelation that had come to pass with no particular charm or wonder. Fleetingly, I wished that my own magic were so guilelessly uncomplicated. I had reached the point of wishing for anything that would make it easier for Ichabod to love me.

After I had finished my tea and seen to it that David was thoroughly immersed in an arithmetic lesson, I drew half a tub full of water and boiled a few pots more to add to it. The warm bath calmed my nerves and melted away a great deal of my discomfort. I knew that I would be in need of a clear mind and steady tongue that evening. Though I had no idea how I was to go about it, my goal was to make amends with Ichabod as peaceably as possible.

It was for that very reason that I refrained from reading his thoughts as I went about the most mundane of tasks: dressing, preparing lunch, touching up the spots of mud in the hall that Ichabod and I had missed in our blundering haste. By three o'clock, it had turned into such a fair afternoon that David and I could not resist a game of hoops on the back lawn. I had saved my childhood set not only for the nostalgia, but also for the enjoyment. David had not had much experience, but in our five and a half months of living on Karrigan Square, he had become a master handler of both the sticks and spinning rings juggled perilously thereon.

Afterward, the two of us strolled Raleigh Avenue in search of dinner. We found it in the same small specialty butcher's that carried David's beloved rabbit. Like the boy, Ichabod had a particular liking for certain small wild game. I planned to make the one thing that I knew he would have no trouble eating: quail baked in apricot preserves. Whence he acquired such an unusual taste, I have never asked, but the fact that there were tears in his eyes when I prepared it correctly on the first try told me that it had something to do with his mother.

I was stirring a pan full of buttered string beans when I heard the front door open. Even though my heart leapt into my throat, I composed myself sufficiently enough to hand over the task to David, who had been most vigilant in keeping me company. All day, I had perceived his subtle fear that I might relapse.

I put on a smile that was tense at best as I stepped into the living room. Ichabod was concentrating on the floor as he removed his boots. Even though we had not made eye contact, I sensed a distance about him that rendered me immediately aloof.

"Have you no mud to track today?" I teased as lightheartedly as I could.

Ichabod glanced up at the sound of my voice, comically forcing his face into the same expression that I wore. I stifled a nervous giggle.

"No, but I can see that you're pleasantly disappointed that I do not. Do you enjoy cleaning up after me that much?" he asked with bemused weariness.

"As much as I enjoy cooking for you," I replied hopefully, disheartened by the fact that he had not shown any sign of noticing the aroma that had followed me from the kitchen.

Ichabod chanced to breathe deeply as he stepped forward to plant a hesitant kiss on my cheek that never made it there. His eyes widened.

"You shouldn't have," he said, humbled.

"Why not? You deserve it. I can tell you're exhausted."

"It _has_ been a long day," Ichabod sighed, settling for a kiss on top of my head. "You have no idea."

_You would be surprised_, I thought wryly, following him as he made a beeline for the kitchen.

Ichabod ate less heartily than I had expected he would. It shattered my nerves all over again to know that I had let him spin yet another duty out of my control. David was genuinely relieved to see Ichabod, for I could tell that he still expected me to keel over at any moment.

A soft turning of pages lured me away from washing the dishes. I found Ichabod sitting on the sofa with his brow knit in unconcealed discontent. He flipped through the pages of his flimsy backup notebook, pausing now and then to scrawl a line or two in his bewitching script.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

Ichabod's eyes flew up quickly, furious that he had allowed himself another moment of weakness under our present circumstances. I had caught him completely off guard.

"I'm trying to remember the questions that I wish to ask Erickson and the Magellans," he muttered. "I left my ledger at work."

Ichabod glanced down evasively, intent upon his notes once more. I noted with suspicion that his discomfiture had increased. I could stand it no longer. I loosed the burning and twisting mind probe that I had restrained all day upon him. If he was lying, then I was going to find out.

Ichabod's thoughts were fretfully erratic. The event manifested itself plain as day. I knew a moment of shocked remorse as Green snatched Ichabod's ledger behind his back. My pity swelled into rage. Ichabod's dolt of a colleague had dared to make a fool of him in front of his wife. _Well._ It was time to make a fool of Green in front of his.

As I closed my eyes, the entire living room dissolved around me. I soared and spiraled through a dozen errant streams of consciousness. _Ichabod to Witherspoon; Witherspoon to Green; Green to Greens home  
_

I found the ledger sitting on a coffee table on the other side of town. I grasped it, flickered, and returned, bringing the object slowly into focus on the armchair in my own living room. I opened my eyes.

"Left it at work?" I asked with mild, feigned confusion. "You must have forgotten it when you left this morning. Isnt that it sitting on the armchair?"

 

*

 

I did not bother to look. "No, Katrina, I left it at the watch-house." I was not about to admit to her that my fellow constables had as little respect for me as she did  I stopped that thought. Enough sulking for one day, I told myself sternly. She has been trying, even if she will not do the only thing you are asking of her.

"Look," she prompted. I glanced at her. She was smiling calmly, but there was something in her eyes, a tiny glint. Out of mere courtesy, I glanced over, and then looked back.

It _was_ my ledger.

But of course, it could not be. I got up, went to the armchair, and examined it.

The ledger had the little scuff mark at the bottom corner that it acquired when I dropped it a few months ago. Slowly, I picked it up and opened it. It fell open to the page of questions I meant to ask the spirit of Gabriel Erickson. I turned a few pages. They were covered with my own familiar handwriting and sketches.

I kept staring at it. No matter how long I looked at it, it was still my ledger.

My hands were cold, and though I think my voice was even, my lips felt numb and stiff.

"Katrina, I did _not_ leave this at home today."

Her shoulders sagged. She looked suddenly weary. "You must have," she murmured, looking away.

"How did it get here?"

"How would I know? It is your ledger."

"I could not have left it home, because I had it at work today." I opened it to the newest page that had writing on it, covered with notes about Colonel Dorn and Senator Trevayne. "I took these notes _today_."

She answered sharply, but did not look at me. "Ichabod, if you want to quarrel again, just say so."

No matter how many times my brain feverishly added up the facts, they still reached the same impossible conclusion.

"Katrina, look at me."

Her eyes flitted nervously about the room, everywhere _but_ at me. With the suspicion that was dawning, it would have been a relief to see her glare straight at me.

_"Look at me!"  
_

Nervously, slowly, she obeyed. I looked into her eyes. The bottom dropped out of my stomach  and my world.

Why did I never see it before?

I did not say the words, they moved out of my mouth of their own accord. "Katrina, Constable Green has my ledger."

She looked wary at the unnatural sound of my voice. "You must be mistaken"

"Are you trying to drive me mad? _Green stole my ledger! It cant be here!_"

Alarm widened her eyes. I stared at her as if I had never seen her before  and I hadnt. I had fallen in love with a pretty girl with a playful nature and a kind heart. And now I was sharing a house, and a life, and a bed, with.

"You did it, didn't you?" I whispered. "You _conjured_ it!" Her eyes dropped, just for one second. It was all the confirmation that I needed. I went cold all over. My ledger fell from my fingers that could no longer hold them and landed with a thud.

She took a step toward me, extending her hand, palm upward. On shaking legs I stepped back, away from her. Had I struck her, I think she would have looked so.

My voice sounded as if it were very distant, but she heard it.

_"Witch."  
_

She turned very white. Her rich, warm brown eyes swam with tears. She lifted her chin as if she were facing a firing squad.

It was the last thing I saw before I fainted.

 

*

 

I did not step forward to catch him. I did not even watch him fall.

Sickened, I turned away. My hands were trembling so badly that I could barely lift them to brush away the deluge of tears forcing its way beneath my closed eyelids. I took a shuddering breath and knit my fingers together so tightly that my knuckles cracked.

"_David! David, come here at once!_"

But when I looked up, I saw that there had been no need to call him. He stood on the threshold between the dining room and living room with a dishtowel in his hand. It slithered as though alive from his disbelieving grasp.

"What did you do?" he whispered fearfully.

"Something that I should not have!" I cried. "How much did you see?"

"I heard him call you a witch. I heard him hit the floor," David replied, eyeing me with uncertainty. He, too, had the look of one whose entire world had come crashing down.

I buried my face in my hands, tears giving way to wild, uncontrollable sobs. It was not supposed to end this way. Nothing was supposed to end this way. Every blessed moment that I had ever known slid away with my husband's consciousness. If this was kindness' treatment of the wizard adept, then I wanted no part of it. I could no longer think; I could only feel. I blindly started for the door.

"No you don't!" David demanded, catching me by the hem of my gown. I tried to get away, but he held me fast with amazing tenacity. I heard the gauzy blue overskirt of my gown rip. I turned to face him with blazing eyes. But I was frightened. I had never heard such fury in a child's voice.

"You're going to help me get Ichabod onto the sofa," David ordered, breathing in fierce, determined gasps. "Get his arms."

I bowed my head, new cries of grief welling up violently from my suddenly aching lungs. "I don't deserve the two of you!" I sobbed.

"You're wrong there," David said, his voice reaching its normal level again, but maintaining its intensity. "We deserve each other. Look at what we've been through together. Katrina, you love him! He's your _husband_, for God's sake!" David pleaded, all at once the frightened young man whose tear-stained face I had sheltered in the crook of my neck against the sight of his father's severed head. "You can't leave us. I'll no sooner let you leave than you would let me leave!"

I knew then for a certainty how blessed we were to have David. Contrite and still choking, I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. "If it were not for you, David," I said, "there would be little sense and reason in this household indeed!"

The two of us lifted Ichabod carefully onto the couch. As numb as I was, the healer in me emerged without hesitation. I unbuttoned my husband's vest and checked his pulse.

"Get me some water," was all that I said. David obeyed.

I tossed the glass of cold water in Ichabod's face, heedless of the mess it made on his fine shirt and our even finer sofa. I was too shocked and angry to care.

His eyes flew open and fixed on me dazedly. With a convulsive, furious cry he sat up and huddled as far into the corner of the sofa as he could.

"Don't you _dare_ touch me! _Witch!_" he cried. I had never heard such raw terror in a human voice. Still, I was so hurt by his irrational aversion that a retort was my only choice for a reply.

"What did you think I was? A mermaid?" I cried, flinging the last of the water into his eyes.

"A healer, but certainly not a sorceress!" he spat. I was appalled. Not even his first brush with the horseman had rendered him so hysterical. "_Stay back! _If I had a crucifix, I'd-"

"Have no sure protection," I replied coldly. "I even wear one from time to time. It hasn't disintegrated me yet."

"You had better have it exorcised, then, for no doubt it's as possessed as you are- _I SAID, KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!_"

No sooner had I raised my hand to slap him than he had wrestled my arm away, forcing me to the floor. I knelt clutching my twisted arm, staring up at him with pained disgust.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? You seemed to like it well enough on our wedding night!"

"_Enough!_ _Katrina, I don't bloody know what you are!"  
_

"It seems the British blood hasn't left you any more than the accent has," I remarked sourly.

"Must you bring up my father at a time like this? _Curse you both!_"

"Watch your mouth," I cautioned him tartly. "There's a gentleman present."

Ichabod's eyes darted crazily in David's direction. The boy was cowering behind the armchair. He darted out of his hiding place and snatched the glass from where it had dropped when Ichabod threw me.

"I'll take this to the kitchen," he mumbled, disappearing swiftly.

"Look what you've done. Just look what you've done," Ichabod cried, tears streaming from his glazed eyes. I choked a sound that was half-laugh and half-sob. He was losing his mind. I stood unsteadily, instinctively reaching to feel his forehead. Ichabod slapped my hand so hard that it stung.

"I don't want you!" he cried disconsolately, sounding more like a terrified child than ever. My broken heart was ground to dust. Just then, an ominous _dong_ sounded in the dining room. I rushed to the clock, staring at it in horror.

I had forgotten that the Magellans were coming. It was a quarter 'til eight.

I rushed back into the living room, returning Ichabod's depraved, quaking stare. "I have fifteen minutes," I said tautly, "to restore your sanity and clean up this mess. Do you remember what's scheduled to take place at eight?"

Ichabod uttered the nearest thing to a scream that I had ever heard pass his lips. "_I'd sooner die than let a ghost in through the front door!_"

"What a pity. It was your idea, too."

"Well, I don't want it, then!"

"You can't disown an idea, Sir Rational."

"Because of you, I am _anything but!_"

I'd settle for that. It was proof enough that at least a shred of his mental capacity remained. I smiled, but it faded as my face blanched at the sound of the doorbell.

"_Good God! _They're early!" I hissed, scooping the dishcloth up off the floor, darting first in the direction of the door and then away from it.

"Hide me!" Ichabod cried shrilly.

I rounded on him vengefully. "Hide you? Oh, no, I won't! You're going to stay right where you are. You're going to stay huddled up in that couch corner for as long as it takes me to explain this fiasco to the Magellans and see them out the door. It _was_ your idea, after all."

Ichabod just whimpered, snatching up his vest and hiding behind it. I answered the door, dishtowel still in hand.

Christopher and Isobel stood side by side, wearing the same anxious expression. It was the first time that I had ever seen Christopher look remotely frightened. Isobel's eyes were full of shocked pity as she studied my torn gown and grief-reddened eyes.

"Have we come at a bad time, Katrina?" she whispered tremulously.

"No," I said firmly, smiling at them. "Please come in."

They entered reluctantly, their eyes invariably landing on Ichabod first. Christopher stared at my cowering husband. I could not identify the motive behind his faintly bewildered expression.

"I knew you were foppish, but I wouldn't have pinned you for a sissy," he said bluntly to Ichabod. There was an odd mix of pity and amusement in his voice. Ichabod did his best to look outraged, but the instant he opened his mouth to speak, only a hyperventilative rush of breath issued forth. His eyes rolled, and he was gone once again.

"Christopher!" Isobel shouted at her brother. "That was uncalled for."

"About as uncalled for as asking us here to perform a séance," he replied vindictively, looking me straight in the eye. I was humiliated not only for Ichabod, but also for myself.

Isobel shifted the velvet bundle in her arms. "Katrina, we'll leave if you prefer," she said gently, placing a hand on my arm. I nodded mutely.

"Yes.... I think that would be the best thing," I said hollowly, losing my composure at last and collapsing on her shoulder. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way," I sobbed quietly.

I felt a small, hesitant hand rise to stroke my hair. "Nothing is," Isobel reassured me patiently. I looked up, and she was smiling sadly. Her eyes had fallen on the marble eye pendant that had somehow escaped its usual hiding place in my bodice. She leaned close to my ear and whispered, "Send word again tomorrow, my sister. I will return to help you even if my brother will not."

I began to cry even harder. She, too, was willing to risk her good standing with the one man in her life to assist a newfound friend.

When at last I had composed myself enough to formally apologize and say goodbye, I found that Christopher's eyes were focused on me impatiently, if not a little penitently. Isobel was glaring at him.

"I had forgotten," I said softly, fetching a small pouch off the mantelpiece. "This should cover both the cab and your trouble."

"Thank you," Christopher said awkwardly. He was breaking down beneath Isobel's insistent, scornful gaze. He took my hand stiffly and kissed it. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"And I also."

I watched them go with a heavy heart. Gabriel Erickson would once more be denied the chance to speak. I closed the door and turned to find David hovering over Ichabod.

"I'll help you carry him upstairs," the boy said respectfully.

"Thank you, David."

My feet, too, were leaden as David and I struggled up the stairs with Ichabod. It seemed an eternity had passed when we finally laid him out on the bed. I embraced David. We held each other for a long time.

"Go get some sleep," I told him, teary-eyed. "I'll still be here in the morning."

"I know you will," he cried softly.

I watched him go with the same despair I had felt upon the Magellans' departure. I was alone once more. And I realized that being alone was what I feared more than anything in the world.

I cried quietly as I stripped Ichabod and dressed him for bed. I dressed myself and lay down beside him, not darkening the room for fear that he would wake in a condition that I knew all too well. I held him with fierce determination, not caring that he could injure me quite seriously if he woke and discovered in whose spell-weaving arms he slept. He would wake in my arms whether he liked it or not.

And I would hold on until the end of our shattered world if necessary.

 

*

 

_I stood in darkness, peering into a brightly lit window. From the safety of the darkness, I watched her._

_She knelt before the hearth, holding a nosegay of wildflowers in one hand and a twig in the other. A secretive smile played about her lips. She tossed the flowers onto the flames, and smoke rose and twined about her, lifting her golden hair until it floated like a cloud. I put on my magnifying spectacles and tried to study the trails of smoke, but they told me nothing. She began to trail her twig in the ashes, and as she made her weird symbols, my ledger rose phoenix-like from the flames. It floated into her hand, and she tossed it carelessly aside. It landed with a thud that shook the floor. At the impact, the scene dissolved and another took shape.  
_

_We were outside. I was in the shadow of some trees, again watching her from that distance, that safety, while she was in the light. Not firelight this time, sunlight, turning her hair radiant like a halo. She was at the center of a perfect circle of red toadstools, a perfect fairy ring. She lifted her face to the sun, closing her eyes, absorbing the benediction of its warmth. Slowly, she raised her arms, and with her eyes still closed, she began to dance.  
_

_In a leisurely circle she twirled, as if to music that only she could hear. She was hearing something that I could not, the music of the spheres, perhaps, or the whispers of spirits.  
_

_I saw my mother do this. So I was not in the slightest surprised when she rose above the ground, still spinning, still with that mysterious smile, her flaxen hair becoming one with the rays of the sun.  
_

_A half a dozen cardinals flitted to her and circled her, as if at her bidding. They flew around her outstretched arms and lit on her fingers for a second before flying on, joining her dance.  
_

_A cardinal came to rest on her hand. It perched there for a moment before she extended her hand down to me. She did not look at me as she sent the scarlet messenger in my direction. It flew toward me at once, obeying her will.  
_

_Hesitantly, I stretched out my hand. It perched there, trustingly. I smiled and drew it close, the shade enfolding it as it did me. It sang for me for a moment. And then it transformed into an owl, and rent my flesh with its claws before I was able to shake it away. My palms were bloody. I glanced up at the tree, where the owl now perched, watching me with wise eyes.  
_

_The scene dissolved once more and we were inside again, and she was standing blindfolded on a huge pentagram of pink chalk, spinning with her arms outstretched. She was twirling in the circle, while others gathered round her, hovering about her like moths about a flame.  
_

_**Pick me**, they each asked wordlessly. **Choose me. Bring me into your realm.  
**_

_I was outside the circle, skirting it, trying to stay out of the light, out of the way. It was warm inside the circle, and beautiful, and the runes on the floor promised adventure and unnamed rewards, but I am acquainted with cold and darkness. I know how they are. In the light are many vibrant hues, a bewildering profusion of them, far too many to make sense of. So I stayed away, outside the charmed circle, in the outer darkness where I am cold and alone but I know what is what.  
_

_I was resolved to stay outside of it. But drawn by some arcane impulse, she moved in my direction, breaking the circle of those who wished to feed off her light to grasp me. She took my hands and backed into the circle, onto the pentagram. I tried to resist, but I might as well have resisted gravity, for I was borne into the circle. And it was just as blissful, as joyful there as I had expected. And just as frightening. I could not keep my feet on the ground. My head spun.  
_

_She kissed my cheek and removed her blindfold, and I fell into her eyes and drowned. Eyes like my mother's. That power lurked in both of their eyes. I can never find the words for it, but a careful look will reveal it there. She was serene, preternaturally so. I was afraid of being in this circle, as I was afraid of so many things. She had no fear in her. But no, there was a fear, though I could not fathom what it was.  
_

_She held my hands and led me into her timeless dance, guiding me, showing me what to do. If only I did as she wished, followed her lead, all would be well. But the panic rose just the same, for this was not my province.  
_

_As we moved together, things appeared and disappeared: spellbooks, ledgers, cardinals, tablets with peculiar writing, mandrake roots, all materialized around us, suspended in midair, and then evaporated dreamily. A fire rose up, and we moved right through it without being harmed, though I knew that if I let go of her hands I would be burned. Strange apparitions, too, flew at us, ghosts and demons, but she was unafraid and drew me on. Drew me on towards more uncanny things that she could face and I could not. For this was her province.  
_

_I pulled at her hands, trying to escape her grasp. All at once she was no longer the mysterious woman with the serene smile; she was a frightened young girl who was clinging to my hands with pleading eyes. She wanted me to stay in the circle with her, I had been chosen, but I could not. It was too frightening.  
_

_With a desperate wrench, I broke away and fled, her anguished cry following me. I ran into the darkness, and was brought up short by a sudden pool of cold white light. In that white light all I could see at first was warm, mysterious dark brown eyes. I stopped. Had the Pickety Witch caught me again?  
_

_But no, this womans hair was not golden, but as dark as her eyes. I stopped, held by the command in her eyes, the message. And then **he** was there, clutching her, dragging her away from me. I made a grab for her hand, but could not reach it. I started to run after them, to stop him from taking her **there.  
**_

_He turned and looked at me and I was paralyzed. There is only one feature that he and I had in common: our opaque black eyes. Our eyes locked, and for one moment I understood him completely.  
_

_He turned his back on me and dragged her on. I tried to follow, but they were moving away from me so swiftly.  
_

_And then I heard her voice.  
_

_I am not the one you are to rescue.  
_

_I stopped striving to follow and listened, and then I turned around and tore back in the direction from whence I had come. It was dark and I did not know the way, but somehow, I would find her again.  
_

And I opened my eyes, and I had.

The false dawn was just passing into the utter blackness that precedes the sunrise. Before the dim light faded completely, I looked at her.

For once I had awakened without starting or crying out, and so she was still asleep, the sleep of exhaustion. I could make out the traces of tears on her face. Her arms were still grasping me, even in sleep. I suspected that not even death would have loosened their hold.

This was not the poised woman who had befuddled me since the moment we had met. Nor was it the stranger with the uncanny abilities I never would have credited. I had not known this vulnerable little girl existed, not even when I had been frantic for my wife's safety, not even when she had been pleading for my forbearance. Every so often I had glimpsed her, but so briefly that I had not credited her.

I did not move; I scarcely dared to breathe for fear I would wake her. I could not face her now. I felt exhausted, as though I had journeyed a thousand miles.

"Perhaps there is a bit of a witch in you, Katrina."

Why had I not heeded the unease on her face when I said that?

I had known she was a witch, of course. But I had been thinking in terms of intuitions and potions and perhaps the ability to charm the birds out of the trees, not the harrowing ability she had exhibited the day before.

I lay as still as I could until she awakened shortly after dawn. She started a bit and looked at me. I could not look directly at her, but I could see that her eyes were guarded. She was prepared to be hurt, but she did not try to avoid me. Imagine, she looked at me as if _she_ were the one who had cause to be afraid.

After a time, I asked, "Why are you here? With me?" I dimly remembered waking briefly after fainting the previous night and telling her to stay away from me. It seemed the Magellans had been there too, though the memory was hazy. I had a vague impression of that pup Christopher taunting me.

Her voice was that of someone with no more strength left, only the determination of one damned. "Because I am your wife."

Slowly, trying not to give offense, I disengaged myself from her arms and began to sit up. I had to get up, clear my head, get away from her spell for a bit.

"Where are you going?" she asked at once.

"To get some breakfast."

She sat up and threw the covers back. "I'll cook it."

"It is not necessary, I can get it."

Her chin lifted, even in her state, which was clearly almost as exhausted as mine. "I am your wife and I am going to cook your breakfast," she declared, like an obstinate child. I ceased arguing. We dressed on opposite sides of our bed, not speaking or looking at each other. Both of us moved slowly, as if underwater.

I sat in the kitchen and watched her cook as I often had, but this time we did not talk. She averted her gaze from me, but I watched her steadily, trying to comprehend her. I could not. I had always loved her playfulness, her serenity. Now I saw something I had not been privy to very many times: that she could be hurt.

_With all her power, what could possibly hurt her?  
_

And whichever side of Katrina I saw, one thing was constant: she was still lovely. Beauty like hers can stop the heart. Even now, with her eyes puffy and her expression glum, she was lovely.

David entered the kitchen when she was in the middle of cooking. He glanced at both of us quickly, and his eyes settled into alertness, waiting to see which way the wind would blow. I suppose it was clear enough even to a child that matters were at stalemate. The three of us ate in silence. To my own surprise, I had an appetite. My stomach was rebellious, but I needed food. For the first time in days, I cleaned my plate.

When the meal was over, I still felt the need to get away, into air where I could think clearly. I stood and spoke hesitantly. "I'm going."

"To hide from me," she finished, not looking at me. "But when you descend from your ivory tower, I will be here to cook your dinner, or whatever else you wish."

I could think of no response, so I turned to David. "Go to the watch-house and tell the High Constable Im ill. I wont be on duty today or tomorrow."

He left at a run. I silently climbed the stairs to my laboratory. Once the door was closed behind me, I looked around at my scientific texts, my jars of chemicals, my instruments  all my trappings of sense and reason. All the aids to clear thought I had gathered over the years. My eyes ran over them, and I waited for them to clear my thoughts so that my rational mind could grapple with the things I had learned.

Perhaps I had hoped that in this room, logic would tell me that what I had been thinking since I had awakened was not so. It did not. It was as true in my laboratory as it was in her fairy-tale bed and in our mundane kitchen.

I had no idea who this woman I had married was. I was petrified of her.

And I loved her completely.

So now I knew what my father knew.

It was frightening to share your life with someone who had powers you could not even begin to understand.

It was terrifying when such a woman ruled your heart.

Was this how my father felt?

_Did he love her?_

I should have asked her what she could do months ago, of course, but after we sent the Headless Horseman back to Hell, it took all of my remaining stock of courage to propose. I am proud of how seldom I surrender to my own blasted cowardice, but in that case I could not bring myself to face one more bit of magic.

_Are you afraid of knowledge, then, Crane? Afraid of the truth?  
_

But of course, I was. I had been running from the truth about magic since it brought disaster on my mother, and tried to compensate by seeking out other truths the more urgently. When I went to Sleepy Hollow, I was given no choice but to acknowledge the truth about magic. I had hoped that would be the end of it, but magic, it seemed, was determined to dog my steps throughout my life.

_And didn't you make a vow, Crane, never to let your craven fears stop you from doing anything you needed to do?  
_

And so I should have to face it. Katrina had been right: Fate would accept no half measures. No longer could I indulge my fear of magic, any more than I may indulge my fears of blood or violence. I face both of these almost daily, and now it seemed I must face magic again. And where better to begin than under my own roof?

I looked at the clock on its high shelf. David should be back by now. I went to the laboratory door, opened it and called loudly, "David!"

"Yes, sir?" said a voice at my elbow. I jumped. David had taken up a post right outside the laboratory door, sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest. He stood as I turned to him.

"Go and tell Katrina that I should like to speak to her." He started down the stairs and I went back into the laboratory to wait. Only a moment later I heard steps on the stairs, but they were not hers.

David appeared in the doorway, looking awkward. "She says er, she says that if you want to talk to her, you can come downstairs."

I gazed at him for a moment. Then I spoke in the firmest voice I had managed in days.

"Tell _my wife_ that I expect her in here within two minutes," I declared in a tone that brooked no argument. David's eyes widened and he hurried back down the stairs. If Katrina was so set on reminding me that she was my wife, I should remind her of the same thing.

I suppose I could have predicted that she would take exactly three minutes before appearing. She entered without knocking and closed the door behind her. Her eyes were watchful, as if she were waiting to be executed. Which was exactly how I felt.

I gathered my courage and spoke.

"I must ask you something. It seemed that this room was the proper place to discuss it." I felt, absurdly enough, that my scientific instruments would make me feel protected from what I was about to hear. The final absurdity: I needed scientific talismans to protect me from magic.

Uncertainly, I held one of the chairs for her. As I did so, I noticed with annoyance that my hands were shaking. Very slowly, she walked over to it and sat down. I sat across from her and drew a breath.

"It is about your white magic." My voice faltered, and it took me a minute to continue. I forced myself to ask, "What exactly can you do?"

She searched my face. I realized that I probably looked as if I were pleading with her not to answer.

"Katrina, please." My voice was rough. "With everything that has happened I need to know. Tell me."

She examined me again, and licked her lips. I realized with apprehension that now _she_ was nervous. Katrina, who is afraid of almost nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

I stared at him for a little while, apprehension gnawing at my resolve. Now that the time had finally come, now that he had finally gathered the courage to ask me- I was speechless. I shifted nervously in my seat. I did not know where to begin. I feared that I would overwhelm him. An unconscious man does not listen so well. I sighed, deciding that to start small was my only hope. But, who knew? What was small to me would most likely seem colossally devastating to Ichabod.

"You're certain that you want to know? That you want me to tell you everything?" I asked cautiously, regarding his _I-really-don't-want-to-go-through-with-this _expression.

Ichabod looked at me and then at the tabletop. "Yes," he said, his voice firm despite his flimsy resolve. "I'm tired of standing in the dark, on the outside looking in."

I nodded slowly, rising. "Follow me," I commanded, moving toward the door. Ichabod stared at me incredulously.

"We're leaving this room?" he asked edgily.

"Yes."

I led him down the stairs and through the hall to our bedroom. I considered myself lucky that I had not needed to drag him. I knelt beside the bed, lifting up the coverlet to expose the dark space beneath it. I swore that a shadow crossed Ichabod's face as I did so. I half expected a large spider to humor him and come scuttling out.

"What does this accomplish?" Ichabod asked with impatience.

"Kneel down," I ordered. Ichabod fell to his knees beside me. "Good. Give me your hand."

"_What?_"

"If you will not do this of your own accord, I swear that I will do it for you. Pass your hand through the air just beneath the bed."

Ichabod was indignant. "This has nothing to do with what I asked you!" he insisted petulantly.

"It certainly does," I said through gritted teeth. I reached beneath the bed with my own hand and knocked with a solid fist against thin air. A hollow, wooden knocking resulted. Ichabod's eyes bulged, and he looked as if he wanted to bolt.

"_What_ in God's name have I been sleeping above?" he asked with horror.

"Feel for yourself."

With agonizing hesitation, he extended his trembling hand. He hit the wall of substantial nothingness, his fingers brushing the maplewood's smoothness. A chill gripped him so violently that he shuddered. He withdrew his hand as if a snake had bitten him.

"Katrina, I want some answers," he said, the hysteria of the night previous rising in his voice. I sighed and took hold of the charmed box. It appeared slowly at my silently commanding touch as I brought it into the light. Ichabod might have swooned had I not thrust it immediately into his hands.

"Feel it," I urged him. "It's real. Nothing extraordinary."

Gaping at me, he ran his hands over the box, raising its hinged lid with awe. He regarded the herbs, ointment, thread, and scissors inside with a mildly sheepish expression.

"I suppose not," he murmured, daunted. "Why did you... do whatever you did to it?"

"An invisibility charm?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "It's the surest way to safekeep anything of value. These medicaments are some of the most valuable in my possession. The rarest, the most expensive. And those scissors belonged- as did the box- to my mother."

Ichabod closed the box and handed it back to me. "Make it disappear again," he breathed in wonder.

The box faded as I slid it back under the bed. Ichabod exhaled as if he'd just run a marathon. He had survived the first obstacle, at least. I wonder if he would have stopped there, had he known it was only the beginning. I stood up, and he followed.

"What else are you hiding from me besides that conjuring business?"

"Nothing," I replied sweetly, pouring the same charm into my voice that I had used on Revered Burris.

Ichabod's eyes took on an entranced, dazed look. He nodded slowly, regarding me thoughtfully. "Yes," he said distantly, "I suppose it is nothi- _what the hell did you just do to me?_"

I winced. I had caused the charm to wear off purposely. Ichabod was glaring at me furiously.

"Katrina, this one's no laughing matter for certain! How do I know you haven't been using that on me since-"

"I have not used it on you so much as _once_ in all the months of our marriage!" I replied fiercely. That was God's truth. I would have cut off my own head before using such trickery on him. "I'm above that, Ichabod. Sorcery should not interfere with love."

"Until now," he said icily.

"Don't you think that our circumstances have finally reached extenuating? We're dealing with a supernatural murder and two young mages in peril, hunted by something that they can't even comprehend!"

"Hunted? You did not speak of this."

"Now I do. Isobel feels an unseen presence at her heels any time she's out alone. And I have reason to believe that Christopher feels it to, as much as he does not want to admit it. Did you see how frightened they both looked, standing there on our doorstep? They were distressed something terrible."

"Is this pertinent to the matter at hand? Really, Katrina-"

"Yes!" I cut in fiercely. "It is relevant. It's at the very core of the matter, in fact! Ichabod, my greatest pain is the loneliness that I feel. Magic isolates the bearer, you know."

He looked at me as if he'd never seen me before. Or _had_, but had never quite thought of me in such a light. A haunted reflection caught and held in his eyes.

"I dreamed of you," he said quietly.

"What did you see, Ichabod?"

"A lost child. A little girl reaching desperately beyond the reaches of her enchanted circle. She was tired of standing alone within it."

I felt my eyes burn. "Which is why I care so much for Isobel, Ichabod. She is the only one who understands. She shares my plight. Even her brother is not half so _possessed_ as she is, as you put it yesterday. We are sisters, she and I. Will you deny me the fellowship of someone who feels my pain?"

Ichabod had hidden his face in shame behind his unsteady hands. "God forgive me," he whispered from behind them. "God have mercy on me...."

I pulled his hands away, holding onto his wrists firmly. My confession was incomplete.

"I am not finished yet. I have more to tell you."

"Katrina, I deserve whatever it is you are about to unleash next."

"This is not a tournament of blame," I said softly. "What do you want to see?"

"I want to see you make something appear out of thin air again," he said shakily.

"The rational man's eyes are never satisfied," I said gently. "Name it, then. Whatever you want."

"Something from the laboratory."

I closed my eyes, still holding his hands. I searched the upstairs room, spun its contents thoroughly, and chose with care. I placed the elaborate glass pipette with its valves and attachments on the bed. I opened my eyes and nodded to the side. Ichabod promptly let go of my hands, staring at the precious contraption that a moment before had not been sitting on the coverlet.

"You could have broken it!" Ichabod exclaimed.

"No, I could not have. That is part of what I wanted to show you. The object arrives unharmed."

"Put it back," he commanded, half-annoyed and half-enthralled.

His eyes never left the pipette. I saw him sway as it faded just as the box had. He made a mad dash for the door.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To see if it's exactly where I left it!"

I followed him back to the laboratory. As I had expected, the pipette sat on the table as if it had never been moved. Ichabod just turned and stared at me.

"You're incredible. Katrina, I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

"If you knew what else I've been up to, you'd-" I began, stopping as my heart skipped a beat painfully. The hardest admittance of all was at hand, and I had introduced it most clumsily. My guilt had gotten the better of me.

"What else you've been up to?" Ichabod echoed fearfully. "Katrina, how many more demonstrations do you have planned?"

"None... but...." I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I couldn't say it. I _couldn't!  
_

"But what, love?"

And that broke my fear, my uncertainty. _Love_. If he could call me that again, then I could tell him that I was a changeling if it were the truth.

"Ichabod," I said slowly, "I can read thoughts."

He stared at me blankly as if the statement had not registered. The bravery that he'd mustered for my sake could only carry him so far. He went white as a sheet and staggered. I seized him by the wrists and jerked him upright. He breathed shallowly as we stood hip to hip, gazing down at me in desperation. He trembled as the would-be fainting spell left him tottering in its wake.

"_M-My thoughts?_" he stammered at last.

"Anyone's thoughts. Yours, Isobel's, Witherspoon's, Green's.... The list does not end there."

"Dear God.... You've been _spying_ on me! To the devil with your claim that love and magic have no commerce!"

"I had no choice!" I cried. "I was worried sick about you. Absolutely sick, Ichabod! How else was I to keep an eye on you while you went about your investigating? You're in more danger than I!"

The realization stunned him to silence. He stared unblinking at my hands gripping his wrists for a long time. The tears in his eyes were ones of shame and unspoken apology. I knew he needed those moments to grapple with reality.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"You never want to talk about it. You skirt the topic as if it's a poison. I would have told you any time you asked!" I asserted. He regarded my determination with faint wonder, remaining silent a few moments more.

I implored him, "There are times when I long to know what you are thinking, and still I do not eavesdrop on you. It's not as if I'm spying constantly, Ichabod! I told you that."

"Only _some_ of the time," he challenged.

I winced. "Only when I'm worried about you! For heaven's sake, Ichabod."

"And when else?" he persisted.

"I confess that was mostly before we were married. I did it even more rarely then. But it was how I knew you were the husband I wanted... _and_ how I knew that you cared, despite your formality."

"What do you mean?" he asked hesitantly.

I felt my cheeks redden. There was a moment when I had done it when I had not even meant to. I had been alone, unguarded, my thoughts lost in a fairytale where no one was lonely and unloved at the last. In the firelight, I had allowed my power to dance in the shadows unfettered. The intruder had been caught in my web before I had the chance to stop it. I remembered the pale glow of his profile in the doorway, the stammered apology as he tried to leave....

"Do you remember that night in Sleepy Hollow when you caught me reading _The Knights of the Round Table_?" I asked demurely, eyes downcast. The mere thought of what had been coursing through his head the moment he laid eyes on me in my nightdress affected me inwardly as it had then, despite the things we had done since.

"Why didn't you slap me then?" Ichabod joked weakly. To me, his smile was a miracle.

"I would have had a devil of a time explaining myself!" I replied, returning the smile mischievously. "And besides.... Perhaps I didn't _mind_."

Ichabod blushed even more deeply than I, struggling to change the subject. "Please, tell me when else you read my thoughts," he begged. "The least that you can do is let me know, lest I go mad wondering God knows what else you've seen!"

I hesitated, opening my mouth only to close it again. How could I give voice to such an intimate crime? I smiled helplessly, holding his gaze as fast as I still held the rest of him. I wanted to know what was crossing his mind in that instant. I could not resist.

He said without speaking, incredulously abashed, _No wonder she always knows exactly what to-  
_

"Katrina!" he exclaimed, interrupting his own furtive thoughts. He extricated his hands from my grasp, hiding his crimson face.

"Do you want me to stop?" I ventured slyly, hearing laughter in my voice for what seemed the first time in ages. "Something tells me that I already know the answer to that! I certainly wouldn't want _you_ to if-"

Ichabod looked up at me abruptly, and my heart swelled with hope. My laughter had infected his eyes. And before long, it had infected both of our voices. I am not certain of who reached for whom first. Even if both of us were hysterical with mirth, holding him had never felt so good.

I wondered if I was the only castaway in history to thank God for the blessing of a storm!

 

*

 

We laughed in each other's arms until we both had to gasp for breath. Her embrace was unreserved as it had been before the incident in McRaker's Alley, and I was whole once more. My heart was rejoicing, shedding the pain and turmoil of the previous days even as my mind struggled to catch up with everything. And I would probably be blushing for the rest of my life.

"So all my effort to behave like a perfect gentleman in Sleepy Hollow was for naught," I murmured ruefully at last, cradling her golden head against my chest. "You knew what I was truly thinking all the while."

She giggled again. "For naught? I married you, didn't I?"

"Thank God you did." I held her more closely, and her arms tightened in response. "Is there anything else? Can you turn people into toads or transmute lead into gold?"

Her voice was amused. "No, there is nothing else."

I had a sudden absurd thought, that I would rather have heard what I had this morning than that another man had charmed her heart.

"I suppose every wife would like to be able to read her husband's mind."

I was trying to joke, but she looked up at me quickly. "Are you going to be forever suspicious of me now, Ichabod?"

Indeed, how could I trust her now? I had known even before I had proposed that she had the upper hand and always should, but now. Heaven help me, she could do anything to me. She could read my mind, and plant thoughts there, and materialize objects at will. I had thought I was helpless because I loved her so and could deny her nothing. Now I was seeing that that helplessness was all too literal.

I could understand my father's fear. But he had not been able to face it. I was an expert on facing fear, thanks to him.

I have not devoted my life to detecting criminals without learning a thing or two about human nature, and a person's instances of honesty are very telling in judging their guilt. She did not have to tell me any of this. She had been as miserable as I for the last few days, this I knew, but she had not used her magic to convince me that I did not mind her wandering about bad neighborhoods, or that I had left my ledger at home. With her abilities, she could have kept me in the dark about everything that she was doing for our entire lives. Instead, she had made several confessions that she knew would unnerve me, and possibly destroy my ability to trust her.

All of this pointed to her honesty. I was afraid of her and probably always would be, at least in the back of my mind. But in the end, the fact remained that I loved her and could not turn away from her. The Rational Man would simply have to take that leap of faith.

I searched her face. All I saw was love, and a touch of girlish anxiety, and that nameless something in her eyes.

"No," I said softly. "I trust you."

Her eyes slowly misted and she hid her face against my shoulder once more. And this time I would not flee from that frightened young girl who wanted me in her enchanted circle. I stroked her shimmering hair. After the days of keeping each other at arms' length, this simple gesture was a precious luxury.

"Yes. And I wanted to tell you why you did not have to fear for me, but I couldn't. You were always so afraid to hear about my magic."

Her softly spoken words might as well have been lashes from a whip. _Afraid._ I pulled back and gripped her shoulders, looking into her eyes.

_"Katrina."_ My eyes were boring into her, and my voice was hard. Her face grew serious, as if she were afraid she had insulted me. But that was not quite what bothered me. "How many times have you seen me give in to my fears?" I demanded in a low voice.

She gave a small smile, and admiration glowed in her eyes. It is a sight I hope I never forget. "Very few," she acknowledged warmly. "I have never known a man who could be so brave when he was truly afraid."

"I almost never allow myself yield to my own fears, because I always regret it when I do. Like this time, for instance. If I had mustered the courage to ask you about this months ago, I could have spared us both these last few days of hell. Often I am afraid of the things I must do, but I am far more afraid of what may happen if I do not do them." I paused to emphasize what I had to say. "Katrina, listen very carefully. I do not treat my fears with any respect. _I do not wish you to either._"

She gazed at me as if I were indeed the knight-errant I had briefly acted as when the Headless Horseman came for her. And as she looked at me that way, I felt almost as if it were true. White magic or no, she could always make me twice the man.

I released her shoulders and glanced around nervously. Part of me simply wanted to kiss her and forget everything else, but my mind was not finished sorting out the day's revelations. I held one of the wooden chairs for her, and then pulled another right beside it so that I could hold her hands as I asked my next question. "Is the world full of people who can do these things?"

"If only it were! Perhaps one in ten thousand people can do some of this. I have only ever known a few. My mother, my stepmother, and now Isobel."

"And that is why you were willing to..." I stopped myself, not wishing to re-air the quarrel we had only just mended.

She nodded tearfully. "Yes, Ichabod. I am so sorry, but how could I turn away from someone who shares my own plight?"

"God help me, Katrina. Now I feel like an ogre for having tried to stop you from seeing her. But I was so frightened for you!"

"I know, forgive me."

"No, it is I who must apologize. I was afraid to face this, but had I had any idea what you were going through, I swear I should never have let you bear it alone."

She made a tiny sound in her throat and threw her arms around me, holding me tightly. With relief I let my own arms encircle her. I felt the dampness of her tears on my chest.

"You brave girl," I whispered. "You carried this secret all alone, because _I_ did not wish to face it! In God's name, Katrina, how could you have married such a..." I broke off, groping for words sufficient to revile myself with.

I was stopped by her hand on my lips. "Don't speak that way about the man I love."

Overcome, all I could do was tearfully kiss the hand that had stopped my words. I cursed softly at the thought of what my infernal cravenness had put us both through, but stopped. Time to berate myself with familiar reproaches about my cowardice later. Now there was a more important matter at hand.

"Katrina." I had to gather courage to speak. My blasted hands were still trembling. "My love, I would not have disappointed you for the world. You must not keep it a secret when you need something from me. Not ever. However much it may seem to be, because nothing else compares in importance. I will never forgive myself for letting you endure this alone."

"_I_ forgive you."

I held her hand against my cheek and gazed at her wonderingly. She looks far younger than her twenty-two years, and as pretty as a porcelain doll. Who would guess at any of the abilities or strengths or loneliness beneath that delicate exterior? No wonder I had fallen so instantly and utterly in love with her, hopeless as it had seemed that an heiress with so many admirers might choose a brooding loner. Somehow, I had sensed the truth about her, that we were kindred spirits.

She went through the world seeing things others could not see, knowing things others did not care to hear. Just as I did. I saw the abysmal loneliness of being the only one with such abilities. And I had been afraid to even acknowledge that they existed. But who else could understand her feelings, even if he did not know she had them? Small wonder she had turned from the cheerful, uncomplicated swains of Sleepy Hollow to a tormented fanatic. Small wonder she had chosen me, even blindfolded.

Shall I pretend I did not miss the role of her protector? She had no need of one. But she had another need, and this one only I could fill. Brom Van Brunt might have been able to remain conscious when she made things appear out of thin air, but he could never have understood how it felt to see what no one else saw and do things no other would imagine. Only I could understand her loneliness.

And only she could understand mine.

"I don't deserve you," I whispered.

Her eyes widened, and she looked outraged. "Ichabod, you are the missing half of my _soul_!"

I looked into her eyes and did not doubt it. Fortune's child she might be, powerful beyond a doubt, and yet she needed me. I had almost failed her. That was not going to happen again. Very slowly, I drew her to me once more and lightly traced her delicate features with my fingertips. She looked up at me, her eyes full of joy and, unworthy as I am, gratitude and yearning. Before I had time to think, we were kissing, and the floodgates opened. The days without her embrace suddenly seemed like years, and I never wanted to leave it again.

"Read my thoughts all you like," I whispered hoarsely, our lips only a breath apart, "but for God's sake, do not let go of me!"

Nor did she. I barely managed to lock the laboratory door before she pulled me down onto the divan.

And I was a knight-errant indeed, rescuing his lady fair from the only thing she could not protect herself from: loneliness. Usually I hold her as if I were afraid she was going to get away. This time I held her as if I knew she was not. It was the first time I truly felt that she needed me. And as I felt the trembling of her fingers in my hair, I wondered why I had not seen it sooner. Her face was so unguarded as she returned my awed gaze that I felt as if I, too, could read her thoughts.

When my mind began to function again, I found that both of us had tears running down our faces as we clasped each other close. I kissed hers away. I was home once more. I wanted to tell her how overjoyed I was, how much I loved her, but no words would say what I wished to. Then I had a sudden idea.

"Katrina. Read my thoughts." She lifted her head and looked at me in surprise. Then her face became intent. As I bared my soul to her, I shivered as I had on our wedding night. An expression of awed tenderness spread across her exquisite face as she looked into my mind. She parted her lips, but was as lost for words as I. At last she simply kissed me, delicate as a feather. Curious how much passion can be expressed with gentleness.

"I hated being without you!" she whispered. "Let's not quarrel again, Ichabod."

"Not like that, at least," I murmured back.

"Not at all! I can never bear it agai-"

I wrapped my fingers in her hair and silenced her by kissing her fiercely. She moaned into my mouth, an intoxicating sound, and her arms tightened around my neck. I did not release her until lack of air forced me to. There was surprise in her eyes. I have never done anything like that before...and something else, too, something that made my head spin. Strange, how the least sign of vulnerability from her enslaves me all over again. My next kiss was far gentler.

 

*

 

We loved more slowly the second time, left awestruck in the wake of an urgent fervor that neither of us had known ourselves to be capable of. His skin against mine sent the same wondering ache pulsing through me as it had the very first time. We wept and soared, searched and recovered what for so many days had threatened to disappear forever. Our vows to each other were blindingly reaffirmed. I thanked God that Ichabod felt no need to rationalize lovemaking.

We lay in a gloriously ungraceful tangle of limbs and blanket for what seemed like an eternity, too wearily infused with renewed devotion to move. I had never felt so completely secure, so completely _accepted_ in my short life. And Ichabod's languid, half-closed eyes told me the same. Still tantalized by his breath on my cheek, I kissed him for what must have been the hundredth time.

"You hypocrite," I murmured adoringly, combing ineffectually at his damp, disarrayed hair. "You clamored for me to keep my hands off of you, and you can't even keep yours to yourself."

"A wonderful thing, hypocrisy," Ichabod breathed in reply, rewarding me with an exhausted smile. For all of our desperation, I could not shake the feeling that neither of us had gotten enough. Nor did I have the desire to. How spoiled we would be, after a day lost in each other's arms!

"Thank goodness you're taking tomorrow off, too," I remarked slyly, resurrecting in Ichabod's cheeks a faint trace of the blush that my mind reading had incited. The first surprise of many since our marriage had been that, behind closed doors, my reluctant, introverted genius was inspired to rites that thrilled the heart and fired the senses. And yet, even in the face of those things, he still had the capacity to blush.

"I'll need to get _some_ work done," Ichabod protested halfheartedly, rolling lazily onto his back so that I looked down on him, my hair a canopy shading us both from the early afternoon sun streaming through the window.

"All right," I sighed affectionately, "but if you think you're rising at the crack of dawn, then you've got something coming!"

Ichabod pouted. "Does that mean I cannot have that _something_ if I stay in bed?"

"Well, perhaps if you behave yourself."

"I've ruined my chances already!" Ichabod laughed, reaching for me.

I pulled the blanket out from under him playfully, wrapping myself in it. "Not so fast," I teased. "I think that a little punishment is in order."

Ichabod groaned, pulling me close. "Stealing the covers is penalty enough! It's getting chilly in here."

I nodded, grinning. "I can remedy that!"

I fixed my eyes on the window. Ichabod watched in amazement as the split panes closed themselves.

"Ah, the wonders of telekinesis," he murmured, kissing me soundly. "Are you sure that there's nothing else up your lovely sleeve?"

Kissing him on the cheek, I shed the blanket and settled back in his embrace. I traced the pale, smooth planes of his cheeks, marveling at what a beauty his mother must have been. Surely he had not inherited such looks from his father! And then, I remembered.

"Ichabod, there is something," I said calmly.

His eyes fixed upon mine with forced equanimity, his lips only a breath away. I remembered that look from one of many hushed moments we had shared on the night the Horseman injured him.

"I trust you," Ichabod whispered, sealing our reconciliation for all time.

"It's not an ability that I speak of, but rather a possibility that you must be ready to face."

Ichabod nodded. I rejoiced at his calm acceptance of a matter that I had not yet given voice. That was trust indeed.

"When we have children, for I have no doubt that we shall," I said, "there is the chance that they will be born with some or all of my abilities. Your mother was a witch, too, which means she passed a recessive gene for the trait to you."

I could tell by the look in his eyes that such a thing had not even occurred to him. It was several moments before he came back to himself, before his focus returned from some distant sphere of apprehension completely foreign to me. He stroked my hair lovingly. "Daunting, but a risk worth taking," he replied with a faint smile.

"They may even be born with abilities that I do not have," I continued, somewhat daunted myself. "Neither of us have any idea of exactly what your mother could do."

"That is true. Scrawling in ashes and levitating made precious little sense to my seven year-old mind."

"Or," I ventured with amusement, "our children might turn out as rational as you and David are."

Ichabod was thoughtful. He said abruptly, "Katrina, what would your father have done if he had known that he carried the gene? Imagine. He was intolerant of your talents, and yet it is because of his genetic makeup that you inherited them so fully!"

"He probably would have denied it," I observed, astounded. I wondered why I had never recognized the implications. Yet another ancestor that I would never know- on my father's side, no less- had lived and died on a foreign shore, carrying with him or her to the grave the same secret that I had expected to bear alone for life.

"I have resolved to be neither your father nor my own," Ichabod reassured me gently. I was so helplessly content that I would have forfeited all other obligations to spend eternity with him in those enchanted hours. Not only had we learned the meaning of love, but the meaning of magic.

Another hour passed, one of rest and peace, of tender communion. Neither of us had realized just how much sleep we had lost until our eyelids obeyed fatigue's siren-song and our lips stilled dreamlike upon each other's skin. Ichabod was the first to wake. I was subconsciously aware of him shifting and stretching against me, but it only lulled me into deeper relaxation.

"Katrina...." The sound of my husband's voice lured me back.

"Hmmm?"

"Will a kiss wake you, Sleeping Beauty?"

Indeed it did. I wound my arms determinedly around his shoulders to prevent him from getting up.

"You can lie here and be lazy for as long as you wish, my dear," Ichabod said. "I'm going to check on David, and afterward I shall return to pore over my notes for a while. That is, if the sight of you dozing there doesn't distract me," he added mischievously.

"Then I shall endeavor to do just that," I replied with contentment, releasing him. As I watched Ichabod dress, I realized how much I had missed that, too. How could it be that I was the first to ever notice his astonishing beauty? As he smiled back at me- standing there donning his shirt like a god- I was reminded that only the brightest day could love the darkest night. _One soul, one hope, inseparable.  
_

Once he had gone to check on David, I decided that I was being silly again and sat up. My mother's proverb ran giggling circles in my head, a giddy child's game bidding lazy Katrina to wake once more. Laughing aloud, I pulled on my chemise and stood to fold the blanket. Ichabod returned to find me in a rare mood. I grinned absurdly as I kicked my heels over one arm of the divan, trying to work the tangles out of my hair without much success. Ichabod laughed, too, a priceless sound of which I had never heard so much in a single day. I noticed his ledger tucked under his arm.

"David hasn't been lonely, I hope?"

"Not with a stack of your fairy tales to keep him company," Ichabod replied with amusement, taking a seat beside me. "The minute I walked into the living room, he tried to hide a book of Middle English ballads under a chemistry text. You have made quite a gentleman of him indeed."

"That's my little scholar," I laughed, swinging upside-down so that my hair cascaded to the floor and my legs dangled over the back of the divan. Ichabod stared.

"I am half convinced that one of these days I'll catch you climbing a tree!" Ichabod exclaimed, tickling my side with one hand while flipping pages with the other. I jumped, tucking into a backward roll and landing at his feet. I sat there on the wooden floor in my chemise gasping for breath, tears of mirth sliding down my cheeks. Ichabod had returned to me one of my lost childhood memories as I had returned his. My mother had called me _katjie_ because once, when I was five, I climbed a tree in the orchard and could not get back down. "Just like a little lost kitten," Mother had clucked as Father carried me to safety. Strange, that it took me so long to realize how lost I truly had been. Ichabod had braved the Tree of the Dead to rescue me. No one's life is uniquely their own, I realized. Each of us radiates outward in ever-widening concentric circles until, at last, our ripples meet and merge. And we are never the same again, yet left as we were always meant to be. I sighed.

"You have grown awfully thoughtful, love," Ichabod observed. "Has frivolity prompted you so quickly to philosophy?"

"Yes," I answered without hesitation, drawing my knees up beneath my chin. "I was thinking about my childhood, and yours. The places that we have been, the places that we are going, the places that we have yet to see." I rose and sat beside him, relaxing against him as he slipped an arm possessively around me. Brushing his cheek, I whispered, " 'O, 'tis most sweet when in one line two crafts directly meet.' "

"I cannot imagine what Shakespeare would have thought of you," Ichabod sighed in wonderment, putting his ledger aside.

"Have you discovered something?" I asked, fingering the black leather book that had been so adventurous of late.

"Nothing of importance. You have proved a most marvelous distraction."

"The tablet," I murmured absently, levitating the ledger on a whim and drawing a nervous gasp from Ichabod. "Do you suppose-"

"Yes, my dear Mrs. Crane, I _do_ suppose," Ichabod cried suddenly, ecstatic, "that I know how it was stolen!"

I brought the ledger to rest lightly on top of his head. "You do?"

"Yes," he replied confidently, snatching the book and holding it securely in his lap. "I believe it was taken in the same fashion that my ledger was taken from Green's possession." Ichabod brushed the tip of my nose with his index finger.

"We need to convince the Magellans to come back here," I said, serious again.

Wincing, Ichabod leaned forward and raked his fingers through his hair. "Do you realize what they must think of me by now?" he asked despairingly.

"Yes. Isobel respects you for the talented detective that you are, and Christopher- well, Christopher just needs some convincing."

"Nothing could have been more convincing than what happened last night, Katrina," Ichabod lamented. "I cannot recall exactly what happened, but I know that in addition to saying terrible things to you, I must have insulted Christopher as well."

"Actually," I said, eyes downcast, "you blacked out before you had the chance to."

"I thought as much," Ichabod replied with disgust.

"Don't lose heart just yet. Isobel reassured me before she left that she will help us even if her brother refuses. And maybe I was dreaming, but on his way out, Christopher actually looked sorry for what he said."

"What... exactly... _did_ he say?"

My instinctive reaction was not to tell him, to protect him. "It doesn't matter, Ichabod."

"I want to know. I will not blame you, Katrina. I deserved to be left out in the open like that. And since I was not coherent enough to face the consequences, I should like it if you would relay to me what is my due."

"Very well." Taking his hand, I admitted, "He said that he knew you were foppish, but that he would never have pinned you for a sissy." I had to scrape the words off my tongue with my teeth, like stubborn hardening toffee off a wooden spoon.

Ichabod just shook his head, his eyes glowing with hurt resignation.

"This proves that I meant what I said about my fear getting the better of me now and then."

"No!" I insisted. "This is a different kind of fear, Ichabod, a kind more trivial than that of the gruesome and the unknown. Besides, I would not call Christopher a qualified bravery critic, considering how heavily he relies upon his sister's ability and hides in her shadow. Isobel holds the keys. Magically, Christopher is nothing without her."

"You mean that he is powerless unless Isobel is with him?"

"For the most part. I have no doubt that Isobel is the firstborn. Whether it be by seconds, minutes, or even an hour, the birthright is hers. I believe that is why he cannot feel whatever is pursuing them when he is alone."

"Do you have proof of this?" Ichabod asked.

"Nothing that I can burn," I answered wryly. "But the fact that he looked as hunted as Isobel as they stood on our doorstep and yet was brave enough to go to the market alone at Isobel's request does make me wonder."

Ichabod nodded in growing satisfaction. A slight increase in the pressure of his hand upon mine told me that his heart adamantly opposed what his mind had just resolved to do.

"Write to Isobel again," Ichabod said with determination. "We will hold the seance tomorrow night."

"Then you've changed your mind about letting a ghost in by the front door?" I teased with gentle concern. I let him know with a look that I loved him far too much to put him at risk of another fit. He looked at me in slight bewilderment, but my humor told him that I must have been alluding to one of his many ravings.

"I have no choice. Never before have I had a case in which the victim had a chance to speak. Now that I have, Gabriel will not be denied that opportunity!"

I did not tell Ichabod, but I found it necessary to offer a substantially larger cab fare than before in order to guarantee Christopher's return. I was shocked upon the arrival of Isobel's ever-faithful reply that Christopher had agreed to accompany her again at all. I paid out of concern for Isobel's safety, for I did not particularly care if her fickle brother decided to be present or not.

Worlds away from the atmosphere of our laboratory haven the day before, Ichabod paced the living room floor like a man possessed. He was skittish, nervously charged by the thoughts of saving face and speaking to Erickson at last. I sat on the sofa, unable to rein him.

"Love, won't you sit down? We have half an hour yet."

"They were early last time, so I expect they might be again," he replied, fussing with the winged collar of his coat as he passed me. I was certain that I would have to replace the carpet due to his beaten trajectory of approximately five feet in either direction.

"David's still upstairs reading, and you know that in his heart he's hoping for more word from his parents. Be calm!"

"If you be calm for me, then I'll be nervous for you. Oh, Katrina, I hardly know what I'm doing! Last time was a lie. Tonight is the truth. There is no hiding from the truth," Ichabod said with a shudder.

I stood and caught him by the shoulders, pressing his ledger into his quaking hands. "You will be calm and sure when the time comes, Ichabod. You have no choice, and I know that you will rise to the occasion. You always have."

"Not the day before yesterday," he replied darkly.

"I'm an exception," I said with a half smile.

"To every rule," he sighed, accepting a kiss with a wan smile.

The brass knocker sounded in that very instant.

"Your second sight is sharper than mine today," I replied, impressed.

Ichabod strode toward the door before I could take charge. He opened it with a confidence that I could only compare to the morning after his first brush with the Horseman. Wistfully smug, all the wiser- _I have faced my fears. Who's with me?_ I could not keep him from the woods this time. I could only follow him again.

"Hallo," Isobel murmured palely as Ichabod opened the door. She held the same dark velvet bundle under one arm, looking even more frail than ever. Ichabod took her free hand, pressing it gallantly against his own palm. _I trust you. Are you with me?  
_

"Welcome, Miss Magellan. I would like to apologize for all prior inconveniences that I have caused you."

"I have not given them a thought," she replied, rolling her eyes at a somewhat sullenly penitent Christopher behind, a signal for him to follow.

Ichabod regarded the younger twin with tame levity. "The same extended to you, sir."

"Honored," Christopher mumbled, shaking Ichabod's hand stiffly.

Isobel darted inside, forgetting all propriety and embracing me with unbelievable tenacity. "I've missed you so," she whispered.

"And I you," I replied. She returned my smile, glancing at my bare neckline questioningly. I shrugged. I had not worn the amulet for two days. It was tucked safely in a jewelry box upstairs.

"How are your hands?"

Isobel showed me one barely scabbed palm. "They were not deep," she replied. "And your ointment has worked wonders!"

"If we may proceed," Ichabod urged, leading us all into the parlor where I had set up a table with three chairs on one side and two on the other. David sat in one on the side of three, beaming. I had forgotten him completely. He must have heard the door open.

Isobel quickly undid the bundle, spreading the velvet over the table and giving the packet of ashes to her brother, who had seated himself without invitation. Ichabod was slightly irked by this, but I gave a calm, gracious look that was meant to both sting Christopher and compliment Isobel.

"You may sit," I said. "You are welcome here."

"Exactly what do you have in mind, Constable Crane?" Christopher asked, sounding for all the world as if his voice had been out of use for a few days.

"I have made a list of questions for the deceased."

"I see," Christopher replied, mulling this over. "We've never done anything quite like-"

"I have," Isobel said with mild, proud defiance, satisfied by her brother's mollified look. "When I was seventeen. A friend of mine, Alice, lost her father to a sailing accident. I walked with she and her younger sister Marybeth to the strand where the wreck took place. The younger wanted to ask her Papa so many things. It broke my heart. So Alice served as the other side of the channel, holding my hands while Marybeth stood there asking with tears in her eyes. I assure you it is possible."

Christopher wore a sour look, as if he could not believe his sister could function without him, part of him knowing his comparative weakness all too well. "Who'll channel, then?" he asked, defeated.

"I will," I said, silencing the all-too-eager David with a glance.

"Are you sure?" Ichabod asked despite his underlying queasiness. "I don't want you to end up with hands looking like mine or-"

"It should not happen again," Isobel laughed, free of enmity, devoid of regret that the false summoning had ever taken place.

I laid my hands out on the table, calm as Christopher rubbed the ash into my palms. Ichabod opened his ledger, nearly dropping it in the process. Isobel brushed the excess away reverently, meeting my anticipating gaze.

_I have never done this with one of my own kind, you know.  
_

How much more jealous Christopher must be, I replied with a tentative smile. _To be honest, I have no idea what to expect either.  
_

"The victim's name is Gabriel Erickson," Isobel murmured, as if to reassure herself. Her fleeting display of nerves shook me.

"Yes," Ichabod answered even though it had not been a question.

"Who is suspected?"

"Someone who should not be. A madman who has killed many, but not this man."

"How do you know this?" Isobel asked, puzzled.

"Crime scene evidence. Please, take my word."

"The man who is presently imprisoned, then? Why is he thus?"

"Because," Ichabod said hesitantly, "he has c-confessed."

Christopher glared suspiciously. "Confessed? Then why-"

"Because the evidence clearly indicates he could not have been the one!" I pleaded, cutting him off savagely. "This is not a joke. We need to know why this man confessed. And so much more."

"I pray that the Messengers will be compliant for your sake, Constable Crane," Isobel said kindly, taking my hands at last. I closed my eyes. Sanskrit murmurings rolled off Isobel's tongue. My mind clouded, a faint bluish haze. I knew that Ichabod had seen nothing of the sort when he had been in my position. I heard Isobel's breath slacken to silence. Her heartbeat rushed to meet my own in the palms of our hands. My our minds were laid bare, each open and vulnerable to the other.

_Gabriel. Gabriel Erickson, please, Rishkha, my friend, _Isobel said to a passing shadow in the mist. _Has he sent you?  
_

"I have not come on his behalf," Isobel's voice echoed in front of me. I opened my eyes, startled. Her own voice became internalized; the Messenger's commandeered her breath. I closed my eyes again tightly.

_Would you please send for him? Someone here needs to ask him some questions. Most desperately, Rishkha! Please find his emissary.  
_

"I will find Mirian," Isobel rasped.

"Wh-Who is Mirian?" Ichabod croaked beside me.

"Silence, visitor," said Rishkha through Isobel. I heard the chair creak beneath the slump of Ichabod's weight. How discomfited Ichabod must have been, to have been called a visitor in his own home! But I knew he had not fainted, for his head had not hit my shoulder.

Another formless shadow flitted in the blue of my mind.

_Mirian, hail to you.  
_

"Hail to you, child," said Isobel.

_Tell this Lady's husband that he may ask whatever he wishes. If it be your will, my kindred.  
_

"It is my will," Isobel said strongly. "The Lady's husband may speak."

"That means you, Ichabod," I whispered.

"Oh! I... I... I..."

I realized with cold panic that Ichabod was dancing the edge of his sanity once more. I opened my eyes reluctantly and gave him a long, pleading look. His wild eyes fastened themselves purposefully to the open pages of his ledger.

"Is- Is the man presently accused the one who has killed you, Mr. Erickson?"

"Understand that he is not here in person," said Mirian through Isobel.

"I _beg_ your pardon?"

"What I say is true, but what this lunatic says is not. He did not kill this man."

"Do youknow _this man?_" Ichabod asked somewhat more boldly.

"Yes," said Mirian. "He is greatly confused and much dismayed."

_About what?_ Isobel implored.

"His killer."

_What about his killer?  
_

"His killer was in the air, but not of it," Mirian elaborated.

"In, b-but not of?" Ichabod stammered.

My hands pulsed with an eerie warmth.

"In but not of the heavens; flesh and blood yet not," Isobel echoed.

"Who killed him, then?"

_"Watch your back!_" Mirian wailed.

I heard Ichabod's chair tip and scoot backwards. "Wh-What in G-God's name was August St. James' gun doing on the... the crime scene?" Ichabod gulped.

_Mirian? Do you know why?  
_

"Ask your wife," Isobel relayed. I heard Ichabod's chair hit the floor as his palms smacked into the tabletop.

"_My wife has nothing to do with this, you trickster!_"

"No, she does not," agreed Mirian, "but what she can _do_ does. You are mistaken. I am not the trickster. The _other_ one, on the other hand...."

Isobel's breath caught violently in her throat. _The... the other one?  
_

Ichabod whimpered. I caught a glimpse of his terrified flashback. _The Other comes... I will hold him!  
_

"Yes, child," Mirian said gravely. "The other one."

_It can't be!-  
_

I caught Isobel as she slumped forward on the table.

"Isobel!" Christopher cried, grasping her shoulders from behind.

"Can you hear me?" I pleaded. "Isobel. Isobel!"

"I-I'm going- !" Ichabod croaked- "to get some water!"

David rushed after Ichabod into the kitchen. Christopher and I moved his inert sister onto the sofa in silence. Tears slid down his cheeks as we carried her.

"I never understood why it had to be her. I never did," he sobbed quietly.

"What do you mean?" I asked innocently, understanding more than I would admit to as we laid her out carefully.

"This power," Christopher cried, reduced to a frightened boy. "I don't understand why the burden had to fall on her. I wish I could carry it for her.... I wish she didn't have to go through life seeing what she sees, hearing what she hears...."

When Ichabod and David returned with a pitcher of water and a cloth, they found me crouching on the floor beside the sofa with a distraught younger brother weeping on my shoulder. I looked up at my husband with eyes ashamed- ashamed that I had accused this boy of ignoble cowardice.

"See if you can wake her," I told Ichabod softly.

Christopher calmed down quickly enough. He watched with pained intensity as Ichabod rubbed his sister's face with the wet cloth. It was several more minutes before she came to.

"Christopher!" Isobel moaned, sitting up straightaway. I urged her back onto the pillow.

"I don't know what happened," Christopher said miserably, "but I'd have stopped it if I could."

"No one could have," Isobel said dismally, pressing the cloth to her forehead with a shaking hand. "Christopher, it wasn't Mirian on that night when the Ericksons came," she gasped.

"Then who was it?" Ichabod asked urgently, taking her hand. "Miss Magellan, you must tell me what you can."

"The _other_ one," Isobel cried helplessly, burying her face in the pillow. "I don't know who that is!" she sobbed. "I simply don't know!"

 

*

 

I tried to curb my impatience while Katrina soothed Isobel. There were a dozen urgent questions to ask. I handed Katrina the damp towel, noticing with annoyance that my treasonous hands were shaking. Katrina wiped the tears from the girl's face, murmuring comforting nonsense. David hovered anxiously behind me, ready to run to fetch anything required. I glanced at Christopher, who was on the verge of tears again. With silent contempt, I passed him my handkerchief. After his scornful words to me. At least _I_ am not in the habit of weeping on the shoulders of other men's wives.

When Isobel's sobs subsided a bit, I held the glass of water to her lips again. She managed a swallow. I tried to strike a tone that was both gentle and firm. "Miss Magellan. Do you think you can answer some questions now? It is essential to both your cause and mine."

Both of the twins looked at me in faint surprise. I suppose they expected me to be hysterical. Proudly, I looked into the girl medium's oddly colored eyes and held her gaze steadily. Katrina squeezed the girl's hand reassuringly.

"Of course, Constable Crane," Isobel murmured in her soft voice.

"What did you mean when you said that it was not Mirian on the night the Ericksons consulted you?"

"It was a...a spirit I did not know."

"Who acted as a messenger for Gabriel Erickson?" I asked, trying to make sense of how this all worked.

"Yes, but this has never happened before!" Isobel began to cry again, trembling. I cast a pleading look at Katrina. I think she understood what I meant; her gaze focused on Isobel carefully.

"Isobel, fear not. I am here with you," Katrina said kindly. I hoped that she was reading the girl's thoughts; I doubted she would be coherent enough to tell me what I needed to know. "What has never happened before? I must know if I am to help you."

The girl drew a shaky breath and glanced around furtively, as if searching for unseen eavesdroppers. I shivered at the thought of it. "It seems the spirit who spoke for Gabriel Erickson lied to mislead the Ericksons."

I stared incredulously. "Are you saying that the Ericksons received a real séance, but the ghost they spoke to was an impostor?"

Katrina's glance at me was wry. "You are going to have to figure out a way to arrest ghosts yet, Constable."

"This is not funny," I informed her. "Miss Magellan, you say you do not know who the other one is, but please tell me whatever you can about, er, him."

Isobel's eyes met Katrina's. She could not speak.

I ventured a guess. "Mrs. Crane says that you have sensed a malign presence following you. Do you think this ghostly impostor is the same entity?"

"I fear that it is!" Isobel wailed, putting her hands over her face. Katrina rocked her, and Christopher glared at me as if it were my fault that an evil spirit was following his sister. Little as I liked the lad, his protectiveness of his sister was a mark in his favor.

"Do you know anything of the nature of this entity?" I continued, hoping that my questions would distract her from her hysterics.

It was Katrina who answered. "She is certain only that it is not a ghost, but that it is not the spirit of any departed human being."

I frowned and tried to sort out the jumbled revelations of the séance while Isobel caught her breath. It was a moment before I said, "And Gabriel's murderer, in but not of the air?"

Both of the twins shuddered, and Katrina's eyes were large with fear. And all three of them were far more at ease with the supernatural than I. I felt a familiar coldness in the pit of my stomach, but fought to appear calm.

"It is likely some sort of evil spirit," Katrina confirmed gently.

"Do you have any idea why it might have murdered Gabriel Erickson?"

Isobel swallowed. "If a mortal has made some sort of compact with it..." Her silvery voice trailed off.

"Like a deal with the devil?" I asked, irritated that my voice cracked.

"Something like that."

"The lunatic who confessed. Could a spirit delude someone, at least a madman, into believing that he had committed a murder he had not?"

Katrina and Isobel locked eyes for a moment, and I shivered again. I am certain they were reading each other's thoughts.

"We do not know," Katrina answered hesitantly. "Very little is truly known about these beings. Most of it is legend."

"And what does legend say?" I forced myself to ask.

The women looked at each other again, and at last Katrina said, "Nothing coherent."

I was certain she was hiding something from me, but I resolved to wait until we were alone before demanding that she tell me what it was. Christopher evidently had the same thought, because he blurted out, "Iso, you must know what this thing is. Tell me!"

"But I don't know!" Isobel cried. Her tone, however, was that of one who did know, but did not wish to face. Both of the women refused to tell us what they knew. To my surprise, I found myself exchanging a look with Christopher of shared masculine helplessness.

I drew a breath and stood. At my gesture, Katrina urged Isobel to a sitting posture. I did not care for talking to Christopher, but it would have been unkind to press his fragile sister any further.

"Mr. Magellan, I need as detailed a description of this Sanskrit tablet of yours as possible," I said, turning my ledger to the page on which I had already made a few relevant notations. The last one was a speculation that the tablet had been stolen by means of conjuring abilities like Katrina's. Christopher was beginning a description when I suddenly lifted a hand. "Wait." I frowned.

A ledger conjured from Green's home to mine. A tablet vanished from a locked box to goodness knows where. And a gun which had no good reason for being at a murder scene.

_Ask your wife. What she can do.  
_

I spoke slowly. "Do any of you have any idea if there is anyone in New York who can..." I choked.

Katrina released one of Isobel's hands to grasp my wrist. A bit of her strength, her courage seemed to flow into me at the contact. I wonder if that is her magic, or simply _her_.

"Who can what, Ichabod?"

"Who can conjure," I managed, my lips so stiff they could barely form any words. "Who can materialize things from thin air."

The collection of witches before me exchanged glances. "None that we know of," Christopher said guardedly. "Why?"

"Can these spirits you speak of do so?"

Again, Katrina spoke warily. "Certain kinds." I held her gaze impatiently, but she only pressed her lips together. Never mind. I would find out later.

"I see. Mr. Magellan, if you would continue your description?"

I carefully wrote down everything he could tell me about the tablet. My most careful questioning yielded no sign of forced entry to their tenement.

"Who besides those of us in this room knew of the tablet's existence?" I asked.

"Only a Sanskrit scholar," Christopher replied. "Shortly after we came here, we thought of having it translated. We have no idea what it actually says, you see. So we consulted a professor of ancient languages. But the fee was far too high."

I noticed Katrina's chin lifting and suspected that the twins would receive their tablet back with a translation. I almost smiled at her unstinting generosity, but sober thoughts prevented me.

It was clear I was embroiled in a nest of supernatural crimes. A murder committed by an assassin who was _not_ a man of flesh and blood, one spirit impersonating another at a séance, a gun and a Sanskrit tablet mysteriously vanished from their proper places, a madman who confessed to a murder he did not commit. Was there a connection between them, or had New York ceased to have murders without benefit of ghouls and goblins?

"Do you remember the professor's name?"

"Professor James Birch. He was very intrigued by the tablet, but I do not see how he could have stolen it, if that is your question. We did not even live at our present address when we consulted him, and we were still using our real name."

"Real name?"

"Our family name was Keller. Magellan is a professional name." Christopher's expression dared me to disdain his showmanship. I did not trouble myself, but proceeded to other inquiries.

When my questions were done and Isobel was recovered sufficiently to go home, David went out to hail a taxi for them. Isobel and Katrina embraced warmly and exchanged vows of sisterhood. Christopher stood by awkwardly, trying not to glare at me. I stepped to him and held out my hand. "Miss Magellan is most fortunate to have such a devoted protector in you, young man," I said firmly. I was determined to maintain good relations with my witnesses, in spite of my personal feelings for one of them and my previous errors regarding them. The lad seemed taken aback, but shook my hand rather sullenly at his sister's glance. I tried to hide my amusement. It was clear that in spite of her fragility and shyness, Christopher was as firmly under his sister's thumb as I was under my wife's.

At last David returned and the Magellans left. No sooner had the door closed behind them than I grasped Katrina's hand and pulled her towards the kitchen. "What?" she asked, surprised.

"This way," was all I said. David followed us, perhaps afraid that another quarrel would start. "It's all right, David," I told him, smiling. "Go on to your room."

"It's bedtime," Katrina added. As David accepted her goodnight kiss on his forehead, I opened a cupboard and quickly found what I wanted. I waited till he was gone before taking Katrina's hands and putting a paring knife in one and an onion in the other. She stared at them, bewildered.

"Onion torture," I explained gravely. "I am going to make you cut onions until you tell me whatever it is you are hiding from me."

She laughed, but her face quickly became serious. "I am not hiding anything."

"Katrina." All humor was gone from my face and voice. "You know more about that spirit that is bothering Miss Magellan than you are telling me. What do you know?"

Playing for time, she set the onion and knife on the counter. "Ichabod, I don't know what this spirit is."

"But you have a theory." She hesitated, and I lost patience. Grasping her arms, I pulled her a bit closer to me and looked into her eyes. My voice was low with anger. "Katrina, I thought we understood each other now. Stop trying to coddle me! Unless you want another epic quarrel," I ended plaintively.

"No! Ichabod, I do have a theory, but I didn't want to worry you with it until I was certain. Especially since I do not know very much about spirits." Studying me, she drew a breath. "I think, and Isobel thinks, that this is not a mere elemental or familiar, but a demon."

The words made me cold. She winced suddenly, and I realized my hands had tightened on her arms. I released her and leaned against the counter for support. "What is the difference?"

She shook her head helplessly. "I do not truly know, and Isobel knows only a little more about the nature of these entities than I do. But I do know..." She hesitated again, but when she met my eyes she continued with obvious effort. "I do know that they are the most powerful kind of spirit."

"Do you know what they can do?" I managed in a strained voice.

"They can kill. And I think they can materialize objects, as I can. And Isobel cannot see them, though she can sense them. I cannot even do that," she added.

"So it could be anywhere?" I asked, my chest constricting. She held my gaze, and in sudden alarm moved closer and wrapped her arms around me. But though the ground had tilted under me for a moment, I did not lose consciousness. When I regained my balance, she urged me to a chair, and I did not resist. We sat side by side, clutching each other's hands, for she was frightened too.

"But everyone could see the Headless Horseman," I said suddenly.

"That was the nature of my stepmother's spell," she replied gravely.

"Is there any defense against these entities?"

"There must be. But what that is I am not certain." She sighed. "I wish I knew more about all of this."

"And I wish I knew a great deal less," I could not help adding. I brooded for a moment. "What are we going to do?" I finally asked helplessly.

"I shall visit Isobel and see what we can piece together about the nature of these beings."

I could not help a half-smile at this. "And I shall not object to your doing so. But be wary, Katrina, if only to indulge me. You might be a sorceress, but your powers cannot defend you from dangers you are not alert to."

"I shall. I promise." Our gazes blended as our fingers laced, and a measure of peace returned to me.

"Don't you know anything else about these creatures? Anything at all?"

She considered. "Isobel told me a legend about a witch who made some kind of compact with a demon and had it kill her enemies and rivals."

"Like those deals with the devil Miss Magellan spoke of?" I looked at her piercingly, and she raised her eyebrows. "Why didn't you say so before? That is the key to it all! Just as in Sleepy Hollow. The assassin is a spirit, but his victims are chosen by someone of flesh and blood." Forgetting the lightheadedness that had threatened me a moment ago, I rose and started pacing. "So once more I must determine, who had a motive for killing Gabriel Erickson? And framing August St. James? I have found only one suspect. Colonel Nathaniel Dorn. He hated Erickson for besting him in their military careers, and he hated August St. James for winning the woman he wanted." I stopped, frowning. "Dorn does not seem to be the kind of man who consorts with spirits."

"An accomplice of his, perhaps," Katrina suggested.

"You are brilliant, my angel," I replied, resuming my pacing. I remembered the mandrake roots in the home of Simon Purnell, Purnell who had been a guest in Dorn's home the night of the murder. And Dorn was also suspected, by Hawke, of embezzlement. He seemed to have no end of character flaws.

"And you are going to wear out the floor, my love. Settle down."

"How can I, when things are finally beginning to make a modicum of sense? When I am beginning to see the first signs of a solution at last?"

A movement caught the corner of my eye as I paced, and I looked quickly to the counter. The paring knife was floating in the air, cutting the onion of its own accord. I drew in a startled breath, freezing in my tracks. Then I looked to Katrina, whose expression was that of a little girl up to some harmless mischief. Seeing her levitate things made me extremely nervous, though I suppose there was no good reason for it to do so. I wanted to tell her to stop it, but the look on her face prevented me; she was clearly enjoying being able to use her uncanny abilities openly. I could not take that away from her, not after all she had given to me.

"So much for onion torture," I managed, and she giggled. After our house had been somber for so many days, that sound was well worth the unsettling sight of an onion slicing itself. "Is that your way of telling me to stop being serious for the night?"

"Excellent deduction, Constable."

"You win, as usual, my love." A fine Petruchio I had proved to be. I held out my hand. She took it and rose, and we slowly walked up the stairs together. I enjoyed every step. While we had been quarreling, approaching our bedroom had been like walking to my own execution.

As I began to unbutton my vest in our bedroom, I remarked without thinking, "But I don't see how I shall be able to sleep with so much to think about."

"Perhaps a little more telekinesis will distract you," she said impishly. I turned to her abruptly, warily. She stood smiling. A great painter would have sold his soul to capture that smile on canvas. And as she smiled, the combs lifted themselves from her hair and flew to her dresser, where they alighted. I realized what she was about and caught my breath. The unveiling of Salome could not have been more alluring. Katrina did not move a single muscle as she disrobed. Nor did I. She held my gaze and I was paralyzed, awed by both her beauty and her abilities...and by her feeling for me, which was more amazing than either.

When she was finished, I think I must have simply marveled for several minutes, scarcely able to breathe, before finding my voice. "Katrina, once every few generations, a mortal man is privileged to consort with a goddess."

I slowly advanced towards her and fell to worshiping her again. We had scarcely been out of each other's arms for a moment since our reconciliation, but still we had not had our fill. Had we been separated for a year, I doubt we would have been more gluttonous for each other.

And even though it was the second night that we were able to drift off to sleep in an unreserved embrace once more, I found myself marveling over this miracle as well.

"I am _almost _glad we quarreled, so that I realize just how precious this is," I whispered as we lay drowsily in each other's arms.

"Yes, almost," she murmured.

"Why didn't you just take me by the ear and tell me everything months ago?"

She hesitated a long time before answering. "Because I was afraid that you would react...the way that you did."

Her voice was very gentle, but I would rather she had slapped me again. I heaved a deep, remorseful sigh.

"I am sorry to have fulfilled your expectations," I said sadly. "I can never forgive myself."

"I wish that you would, my love."

"I cannot. So I shall have to settle for trying to make it up to you."

"How can I refuse such an offer?" She pulled me even closer and pressed her lips to my forehead. "But at least let me share the blame, my love. If you were afraid to hear, I was afraid to tell." When I did not reply, she moved back slightly to look into my eyes. "Don't you see, Ichabod? We have both faced our fears, and they are behind us. Our bond is stronger than ever now."

"That is true," I murmured. Since learning of her secret loneliness, I had ceased to feel like an intruder in her enchanted circle. I had always been half expecting her to vanish one day, like a fairy bride from a story who in time must return to her own realm. I simply held her for a moment before saying, "Let's not lose this again. I think a second time would kill me."

She began to run her fingers through my hair, fussing with it as she likes to do. "Then don't arrest me again," she teased.

As sometimes happens, always surprising me, her playfulness infected me. I seized her wrist and pulled her hand away from my hair. "I won't have to. I'm keeping you in custody. Forever."

She laughed softly, and a second later I felt invisible fingers parting my hair and lifting the locks of it. She was using her telekinesis to play with my hair now.

I released her wrist and rubbed my scalp. "Stop it! That tickles!" She giggled, and I made her giggle harder by tickling her side. When she began to squirm away from me, breathless with laughter, I stopped and pulled her close to me again. "Whatever abilities the next generation of Cranes inherits, I hope they don't get _that_ one."

"Why not?" she asked, catching her breath and snuggling closer. Her hair was very soft, and smelled of honeysuckle.

"I can hear it now. Stop levitating Father's chemicals, or you'll get no dessert."

She laughed. "Oh, dear," she gasped. "Most parents have quite enough to contend with even without children who can do magic. You are a brave man."

I was pleased, but shrugged. "There is no such thing as magic," I said in as pompous a tone as I could manage. She grinned.

"Really? Then... what is your rebuttal to those romantic poets claiming proof of magic in a rose at full bloom, or even in a teardrop?"

"Poets have silly notions about plants and bodily secretions," I replied in the same tone. She laughed at that until I found a way to make her stop.

As she buttoned up my uniform jacket the next morning, as if I were incapable of doing it myself, she said coyly, "Couldn't you take a third day off?"

I chuckled. "It is very tempting, my angel," I admitted, though I knew that she was joking, "but I must continue investigating Dorn. He is behind all of this, I know it."

She looked grave. "How will you proceed?"

I had already decided on that. "I am going to have to investigate his finances. I have reason to believe he is misallocating funds, and a look at what he is spending them on may prove revealing. And I have suspicions about some of his associates, as well." As I spoke, I realized that I had never mentioned Joseph Hawke to her. When this investigation was over, I would have to have Hawke and his fiancée to dinner. The thought distracted me for a moment; I am not used to society, but I found that I wanted to extend my acquaintance with Hawke. Coming back to the matters at hand, I added, "But my first task today shall be to speak with this Professor Birch. Fear not, my love. No matter how many ghouls and goblins are involved, this case will not resist investigation by a Rational Man. The last one did not."

"That is true," she acknowledged, though her smile seemed slightly amused, I cannot imagine at what. I picked up my ledger, and as I did so, yet another connection fell into place. In Sleepy Hollow, she had seemed to understand far more than she should have about my suspicions of her father. Small wonder, if my mind as well as my ledger had been an open book for her.

She escorted me to the door, looking up at me affectionately. Perhaps she expected me to kiss her cheek as usual before I left, but this time I did not fulfil her expectations. Instead I took her in my arms and kissed her mouth quite thoroughly and for a very long time. I don't know how I managed to leave.

When I reported to the watch-house, Constable Green approached me. For once, he looked slightly apologetic. "Constable Crane. I didn't mean to lose your stupid ledger, but I'll keep looking till..." His voice trailed off and his eyes widened as he saw the book under my arm.

I smiled and said nothing.

"How..." He choked. "How did you...?"

My smile widened. "_Magic_," I said mysteriously, and walked away.

I heard him mutter to Witherspoon, "Maybe there's something in this deducting fol-de-rol after all."

I kept smiling to myself as I set out to see Professor Birch. My least favorite colleague's juvenile prank had saved my marriage. I had an impulse to turn around and thank him.

Professor Birch seemed as ancient as the languages he studied. His office reminded me of Notary Hardenbrook's; dusty, disarranged volumes and papers everywhere, mingled with the occasional artifact. On his desk was a sheaf of papers covered with odd notations, and a small urn with Egyptian drawings and hieroglyphs on it; I assumed he was translating them. I frowned for a second; the urn seemed familiar, but I could not place it. I decided I must have seen something similar in the museums Katrina likes me to take her to.

Having introduced myself, I explained, "I am investigating the theft of a Sanskrit tablet, and since you are the foremost authority on Sanskrit in the States, I thought you would be likely to know who might be likely to wish to steal such an artifact."

As I had hoped, he looked pleased at the flattery, but he could not give me any names...or, at least, he would not. I wondered if it was my imagination or if his eyes were darting about nervously as he denied knowing of anyone who would be willing to steal a Sanskrit tablet. To put him more at ease, I discarded my planned questions for a moment to ask him about the urn.

"Ah, yes. Fourteenth Dynasty, very valuable."

"Where did you acquire it?"

"Oh, it does not belong to me," he answered regretfully. "Its owner has entrusted it to me for translation."

"Do you do a great deal of that kind of work?"

"A fair amount."

"Did the owner of that urn travel to Egypt himself?"

"No, he knows several merchants who import artifacts for him."

"Several! He must be a wealthy man." As I said this, a connection formed in my mind, and I knew where I had seen that urn before. It belonged to Simon Purnell.

I was so galvanized by the connections forming that I almost started pacing right there in Professor Birch's office. The Magellans and the tablet to Birch; Birch to Purnell; Purnell to Dorn; Dorn to Erickson; the Ericksons back to the Magellans. But though the case was becoming clear enough, what could I do with it? I could hardly arrest Dorn for setting a demon on his old rival. My best hope, it seemed, was to prove that Hawke's suspicions were justified and arrest Dorn for embezzlement. It seemed rather petty, but it was better than allowing him to get away with his crimes. He had made a mistake by including Hawke in his alibi.

 

*

 

I leaned against the front door until my breath and my heartbeat ceased to mimic the wild beating of wings. I passed my hands over my flushed cheeks, over my irrevocably smiling lips. For once, gloriously, the warmth of my husband's parting kiss did not glow like the sun upon my cheek or my forehead- it burned upon my mouth like fire, a flame that consumed but did not scorch. I do not know how we finally managed to tear ourselves apart. We had whispered our love into each other's hearts, and our eyes did not part until Ichabod disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. Seeing Ichabod off to work had never been such a poignantly sweet separation.

I moved with light steps into the kitchen, where I discovered a well groomed but exhausted David sitting at the table. He rested his head upon his neatly folded arms. I passed behind him quietly, reaching down to ruffle his hair.

"Either you were up all night reading, or the Sandman just didn't come," I remarked affectionately. David looked up and offered me a weary smile.

"The Sandman came, but I wouldn't let him charm me."

"Why is that? Yesterday was taxing for all of us. You need rest."

David glanced away sheepishly. I smoothed his hair back into place.

"I don't want you to worry about Ichabod and I any more," I said firmly. "We've resolved our differences. I expect your nights to be spent under the covers rather than crouching with your ear at the door."

"All right," David yawned, eyes a bit brighter. Not even fatigue could hide his relief. "Exactly...um. I don't want to be rude, but...I wondered..." he began hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"What it was that made Ichabod faint the other night," David blurted in a single breath. "Will you... Will you show me?"

I was caught off guard. I had not even considered that David did not know my secret in its entirety. I nodded slowly. He would know sooner or later, and I preferred sooner.

"Are you awake? David, I mean alert. I don't want you to think you're dreaming."

He snapped to attention quickly. "I am," he said eagerly.

"Good," I breathed, distracted. I was searching the kitchen for a target. I was touched, though, that he showed no fear even when he knew that something unnatural was about to take place. "All right," I said, concentrating on the blown glass vase on the windowsill. I lifted it with care, letting it hover a few inches in the air. I glanced back at David.

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"Look at the windowsill," I laughed softly.

I would have given anything for Ichabod to be there. David jumped out of his seat and rushed breathlessly to the window. He stared at the floating vase with incredulous delight.

"Can I touch it?"

"Certainly."

He fingered the vase, pressing a hand over his mouth when it bobbed tranquilly at the timid prod of his finger. I lifted the vase and willed it to sail in circles around him. David gasped, spinning to follow its progress.

"Can it go any faster?" he asked.

I grinned. This had been a lonely pastime of mine as a girl, and I was thrilled that it would be a lonely one no longer. "Hold on to your hat," I cried.

The vase broke its orbit and sped past David into the living room. He gave a yell and chased it. I stood beside the table, hysterical with laughter.

"Katrina!" David called indignantly from the living room, "That's not fair! I can't reach it way up in that corner. It's upside down, too!"

I let the vase glide dramatically down the wall, bringing it to rest on the floor. A few minutes later, David returned to the kitchen. He carried the vase with reverence.

"You've been able to do that all along?"

"Yes," I confirmed.

"No wonder you didn't show Ichabod!" David laughed. "Was that all?"

"No," I said hesitantly, "but it was something similar." I was reluctant to make an exhibition of my conjuring ability for him without good reason. But then...

"David," I asked, "have you lent anything to Colin in the past couple of months? Something that he'd be likely to forget about completely?"

"No," David said glumly, "but something of mine is at his house. It's my favorite marble- you know, the dark blue cat's eye. It rolled under the china cupboard in his dining room. We couldn't move it to get the marble."

I held my breath for a few seconds before exhaling sharply. "Hold out your hands," I instructed him.

"Like this?" David asked, uncertainly presenting me with his flat palms. There was a glint of nervousness in his dark eyes.

"No, cup them together. That's right."

"Katrina?" His voice quavered.

"Trust me. If you can handle a flying vase, then you can handle this," I reassured him. I reached for the dark corner in the dining room of a white house with brown shutters at the end of Raleigh Avenue. The air just above David's open hands flexed itself strangely. David caught the falling marble with trembling fingers. He rolled it as if to verify its authenticity. His eyes darted incredulously between the marble and me.

"How do you do it?" he asked in a thin whisper.

I touched his cheek gently, as if the action would atone for my lack of an explanation. "If I knew," I said simply, "then I would tell you."

David put one hand over mine and smiled, clutching the marble to his heart with the other. "It's amazing, though," he said with quiet admiration. "I promise you that I won't faint or tell anyone. Besides, I feel even safer now!" he laughed.

I put my arms around him and laughed, too, my eyes filling with tears at his complete, trusting acceptance. I would not tell him about the mind reading. I had never unveiled David's thoughts, and I never planned to. His honesty was a rare, inviolable virtue.

I bought some eggs from the Heathrows next door (whose hens often provided a treat and whose rooster often provided a disturbance) and made omelets using some cured ham and the onion that had sliced itself the night before. David nearly spit out a mouthful of tea when my fork started to feed me. I sat grinning and chewing with my hands in my lap while David laughed so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks.

As he helped me clear the table, David suddenly pointed at my sleeve.

"Katrina, one of your pearls is loose."

I froze, setting the plate back on the table. I caught the precious bead just before it slid off its dangling thread.

"I won't be long," I said, heading toward the living room. The gown was my newest one, a rich forest green trimmed in black lace. I tried my best not to trip on the skirts as I hurried up the steps. It was an unusual cut, for the skirts were barely half as full as my others. In addition, the accents were dazzlingly unique: a panel of black satin embroidered with orchids accounted for most of the bodice, and the sleeves, sleek to the elbow without flares, were each darted with a row of black pearls. I marched purposefully into the bedroom, clutching the errant pearl for fear I might lose it.

I knelt beside the bed, pulling the charmed box from beneath it. As carefully as I rose with it, balancing it on my knees as I sat on the edge of the bed, I still lost my grip in favor of the pearl. The box slid to the floor, lid flying open. Ointment jars and glass vials full of dried herbs scattered, and the sewing scissors missed daggering into the hem of my gown by mere inches. Five spools of thread took off in separate directions- the dark green farthest from me- and the pincushion rolled under the bed. On hands and knees, I scrambled for the box. As I picked it up, a soft _shhh_ echoed from inside. The sound had been wood gliding on wood. A small rectangular panel had swung open from the bottom of the box. A cedar needle holder rolled out. In six years of using the box, I had never discovered its secret compartment. I had not even known it existed.

Forgetting the box, I snatched up the needle holder. Cylindrical, perhaps three inches long. I worked the stopper free. A chill came over me. Rather than a needle, a delicate hollow bone barely as long as my little finger slid into my palm. It was yellow with age and just a little thicker than a large needle. A patina of hairline cracks riddled its surface. I stared into the needle holder. A piece of paper was folded and rolled up inside. I set the pearl and the bone on the floor beside me and coaxed the paper out. A tiny, perfect down feather floated out with it, drifting to rest in my lap. It shone like a tiny, wispy bloodstain on the green folds of my gown.

_Oh, look, a cardinal! My favorite!  
_

I closed my eyes on tears as I unrolled the paper. As blurred as my vision was, I would have known that delicate penmanship anywhere....

 

 

 

 

>   
>  _My dearest Katjie,_
> 
> _I watch you running barefoot in the grass and cannot distinguish your hair from the sunlight. You charm butterflies to the tip of your finger without a thought, and already you can hear whispers that pass the rest of the world by. As if in answer to my musing, you pause and tilt your head, thoughtful. You, too, can sense that your father comes riding from the Van Garrett orchard, and soon you will race to meet him. I do not know how to tell him that I know for certain that you are what I am. And so I wait another day, another month, another year. You are only five, after all. Yet I dare not imagine how many years have passed by now, as you read this. Perhaps it is only a few years from now, and I have sent you for my sewing box, from which sprung a curious trapdoor when you bumped it, and soon you will come running with your discovery. Or perhaps you have just turned sixteen, clad at last in a lady's finery and surrounded by suitors. Or perhaps-- you are a woman with a house and husband of your own. You are my hope, Katrina, and my prayer. Have faith in him, this man whom you love. Ten times the fool, I, if he does not fear you as your father fears me, for then this advice is given in vain. I cling to the possibility that he does not. But, daughter, if your life proves the mirror of mine, do not despair. How far apart are fear and love, after all? What is love but fear reborn, an unknown come of age as devotion blooms? My fingers ache from chipping away the ends of what once was a cardinal's wing. Keep it close, Katrina. Grow as strong and fragile and fierce as this bone, and you, too, will outlast the joys and sorrows of time._
> 
> _Ever have I loved you, Katjie, and ever I shall,_
> 
> _Mother_

Of course she knew. Even then, she knew. No, she had not foreseen my fate, but her uncanny sense of proper time and season had seen to it that the words were just right. A few of my tears fell on the paper, bringing the seventeen year-old ink to life. A dark tear ran from the tip of the "r" in "Mother." So we wept together for our joys and for our sorrows until I had nothing more to cry to heaven. I folded and rolled the note as it had been, carefully rolling it back into the needle holder. Sometime, I would show Ichabod.

I picked up the tiny feather and wrapped it in a square of tissue. I set it on my dresser beside the bone and put the sewing box back in order.

In minutes, the pearl was fastened to my sleeve once more. I dried my eyes and slipped the marble eye pendant over my head, taking care to conceal it. I swept my hair up, fastening it with a silver pin. It would not hurt to look subtly different for a second venture alone into McRaker's Alley. I remembered the leery old cleric and shuddered.

I returned to the kitchen carrying a black velvet handbag in which I had placed my replenished coin purse and my mother's pistol. David sat at the table, studying the green vase closely. He looked up, slightly embarrassed.

"I wanted to see if whatever you did to it altered the glass. It didn't. Not a scratch, not a difference," he said in amazement. "It's fixed?" he asked expectantly.

I smiled, showing him my sleeve. "Absolutely. Although, the stitch was a more difficult one to match than I thought it would be," I lied smoothly, covering for my extended absence. "David, I need you to keep an eye on things here again. I'm going to see Isobel."

"With Ichabod's permission?" he asked cautiously.

"He granted it yesterday," I confirmed.

"Good. Still, be careful," David said. "Here, take this." He dropped the marble into my hand.

"Thank you," I said, tucking it into my bag. "I promise that I will return safely."

On my way out, I borrowed one of Ichabod's thinnest black uniform belts and threaded my bag onto it by its handles, securing the valuables at my waist. I did not intend on being the victim of a thief any more than I intended to walk.

The cab driver deposited me warily on the outskirts of the vicinity. Though it was not a market day, a few of the vendors kept permanent posts. I was pleased, for there was something that I wanted to find before calling on Isobel. In the aisle that had become increasingly more Bohemian, I was drawn to a small, well-kept table run by a woman with black hair and black eyes. Her smile was warm, her welcome silent.

"Kind mother," I said respectfully, for she was well past her middle years, "how much for a length of this cord and a dozen of your beads?"

The woman named her price, and it was fair. "For what purpose will you use the cord?" she asked, taking up her scissors.

"An anklet," I replied.

The woman nodded, cutting the appropriate length and tucking the cord into a silk jewelry pouch. She handed it to me and said, "Choose to your heart's content."

I nodded gratefully and picked an assortment of delicate seed beads in sea foam jade, white coral, and rose quartz. I selected a few slightly larger ones of a milky blue stone carved in the shape of forget-me-not blossoms. I was about to pay her when something else caught my eye. I dipped my finger into a tray compartment full of ivory ovals inlaid with rings of different colors so that they resembled tiny eyes. I found the offending shape, the one that did not belong: a perfectly round disk carved with the pentacle design that I had drawn so many times by heart. With a rush of triumph, I claimed it.

"Add this," I said to the woman, "and another bit of cord longer than the first."

The woman nodded, naming the final price as I added these last items to the jewelry pouch. Once I had paid her, she took the pouch from me and knotted if deftly with a glittering ring-shaped bead drawn out of thin air, murmuring a blessing of goodwill as she did so. I accepted the tiny parcel and stared at the glittering ring.

"Opal!" I breathed. How on earth had she known that I was born in October? Everyone knows that an opal may be worn only by those born in its month, for otherwise it brings misfortune. I began to protest, "My lady, I cannot accept-"

"You can, and you shall also accept this," the woman said, reaching under the table and producing what appeared to be a ring box. Unprotesting, I opened it. A tiny, hollow glass teardrop bead was cushioned on the velvet.

"Handle that one with care. You need it."

"I will trust you on that one," I said with slight puzzlement, tucking the box and the jewelry pouch into my handbag. The woman's bottomless eyes rested at my neckline, and I realized that my pendant had swung free of my bodice again. She pointed at the hollow marble eye.

"I never dreamed that I would live to see even one of the pair!" the woman said with feeling. "Make haste to her now- your sister waits. Gods go with you."

I whispered mystified thanks and curtsied. I had been so caught up in her spell that I had not noticed the vendor at the far end of the row. When I turned to leave, it was too late. I saw him.

Reverend Burris eyed me with aloof recognition. He pointed in my direction, and the stranger with him looked up from whatever artifact he had been appraising. The man, weak-chinned and instantly abhorrent to the beholder, went pale as he stared at me. In his eyes, I recognized an unspeakable hunger. My stomach lurched. And in that instant- no longer than it takes to breathe- the faint breeze swelled to a violent gust of wind, loosing my hair from the silver pin so that it tumbled about my face in a wild sunburst. The ugly man seemed to choke, eyes bulging.

_Run, beloved!  
_

A cold fear so sudden and unfamiliar settled in my stomach that I nearly tripped as my feet simultaneously took flight. In my mind, Ichabod's voice had rung with such clarity that I knew, in my distress, I had only imagined it. I raced through a maze of back alleys and unfamiliar streets until finally, by sheer chance, I recognized the opposite end of the Magellans' tenement.

I reached the dusty-windowed door with burning lungs. Once inside, I was instantly aware of raised voices behind the landlord's door at the foot of the stair. I froze. One of the voices was Christopher. I struggled to regain control of my breath as I approached the door, leaning as close as I dared.

"Mr. Magellan, I have tolerated late payments from you on more occasions than I generally permit," the landlord warned sternly.

"How many times do I have to ask you?" Christopher pleaded indignantly. "Is it my fault that a pickpocket chose me as his next victim?"

"I have not known you to make excuses, but on the other hand, I have not known myself to accept them."

"This is unbelievable!" Christopher growled. "Give us a week!"

Driven by pity and curiosity to snooping, I probed the landlord's mind. I was incensed by what I found: some slightly wealthier tenants, apparently some overly pious Christian folk, had complained about the presence of mediums in the building. What was the loss of two poor tenants in light of the offer of higher rent from some richer ones? Christopher's plight presented a despicable but viable reason to oust the twins. My blood boiled as I quickly delved into Christopher's thoughts. As yet, he was unaware of me. Soon, he would be thanking me.

I gathered without difficulty that his coin purse lay empty in his pocket, drained by a crafty unseen hand as he crossed the market plaza. I concentrated on Christopher's coin purse and half the remaining contents of my own. They merged and became one, landing noiselessly on the floor of the landlord's office. More difficult was tapping into Christopher's nerve impulses, but as he took a shifting step backward, I slid the purse to where I prayed his foot would land. I heard him gasp, heard the grating of metal ground into metal beneath his shoe. I sighed in relief.

"Sir, my purse is here!" Christopher blurted. My heart leapt in thanks that he had not mentioned that the purse itself had remained in his pocket! I heard the clink as he picked it up. "I must have dropped it."

I heard the landlord mutter something under his breath, but some coins changed hands. As I stole up the stairs, I sent a piercing caveat that not even Christopher's dim psychic perception could miss.

_Remember whose wife it is that aids you.  
_

Came the startled reply, _Lady Crane?  
_

_Yes, Christopher. I am at your door even now. I must speak with your sister alone. Notice that there is some money left over. Go pick up the cheese, cider, eggs, and clothespins that you forgot while you were shopping.  
_

Yes, ma'am, Christopher responded, dumbfounded.

But what he said aloud was, "I will pay you on time next month, sir. Mark my words."

"You're a lucky devil, lad," grumbled the landlord.

Isobel embraced me at the door, laughing hysterically. "Come in," she gasped, drawing me into the flat, "and tell me what mischief you caught my brother about downstairs."

I told her. It was wonderful to hear Isobel laugh, even briefly. "I knew you approached because of your exchange with Christopher. I swear that every Sensitive in the vicinity must have heard you!"

"There are others?" I asked, petrified.

"No," Isobel giggled. "But you were shouting something fierce! I doubt he'd have gone back for the forgotten items if you hadn't dragged a reminder out of his subconscious for him."

I was content to let Isobel remain ignorant of the real reason for their near-eviction. I hated to change the subject, but the encounter with Reverend Burris and the lecherous stranger had put me in a somber mood. I felt lightheaded, as if rescuing Christopher had required an intense physical effort.

"Isobel, I have a great many suspicions that I wish to discuss with you," I said tentatively. "My feeling is that you agree with them already, but I want to make sure."

"I don't blame you," she said with surprising enthusiasm, pulling two chairs into the kitchen where a kettle steamed. "I wish to do the same."

"I shall be blunt, then," I said honestly, "but I don't want to frighten you. We both know that it was probably a demon that spoke during the Erickson séance. I can barely breathe it, Isobel, but..."

"You must tell me."

"Ichabod and I believe that the same demon killed Gabriel Erickson."

Isobel did not reply. She raised her hands instead, staring numbly at her healing palms. She closed her eyes, nodding slowly.

"In but not of the air, flesh and blood yet not," Isobel said with a quiet, bitter smile. "Yes, I fear that you are right. Spirits can maim, even kill. What I do not understand," she added with faint amusement, "is how your husband was drawn so easily to this conclusion."

My blood froze even as she handed me a steaming cup of tea and took the seat opposite me. She saw the coldness in my eyes and blanched.

"I did not mean it as an insult," she said in a penitent whisper. "Oh, Katrina, I'm sorry-"

"No," I said harshly. "I didn't take it as an insult. Isobel," I choked, meeting her tear-filled gaze with my own, "my father was killed by a ghost, and Ichabod was there to see it."

"Lord, no!" Isobel cried softly.

"There is more," I continued, steeled by blind hate. "My stepmother controlled the ghost, just as a mortal is controlling this demon."

"What horrors you have seen," she said in a plaintive whisper, taking me in her arms.

"Then look into my eyes, that you may see them too," I sobbed, "for I am loathe to voice them. Yet I know that the answer lies there... in Sleepy Hollow."

Isobel released me, gently tilting my chin so that our eyes met. From start to finish, Isobel witnessed a legend come to life. Seven times, the memory of a fiery axe cleaving pale human flesh in twain flashed in her violet eyes. With a cry she turned her face away, unable to evade the smears, splashes, and nightmares of blood that haunted my beloved. We fell on our knees weeping.

"David's... David's father... he... too?" Isobel gasped.

"Yes."

"And Ichabod, nearly... twice!.... _You_, nearly.... _Katrina, I cannot bear another glimpse beyond his blade at your neck!_"

Isobel fell on my shoulder, and I on hers. "I... I shall tell you the rest," I said resolutely. "Ichabod reached the skull in time. He tossed it to the Hessian, who dropped me in favor of catching it and returning to damnation with my stepmother across Daredevil's saddle. Don't picture the tree again, Isobel.... I pray you, do not! What matters is this: the three of us survived. The lesson to be learned is, that in order to defeat a demon, _give it what it wants_. Not what the controller wants, but what it wants for its own sake."

"Yes," she responded, taking heart even though she was badly shaken. "All that the Horseman really wanted was his head. How strange it is," she observed, looking me wistfully in the eye, "that you owe your present happiness to such a travesty."

"I have come to accept that life is a balance of love and loss, and that the greatest gift comes at the price of the greatest sacrifice."

"Then what must I sacrifice?" Isobel asked desolately. "Clearly, what the demon wants is not in the hands of its human consort. Katrina, it follows _me_. For all I know, it follows my brother when he is alone, when he cannot sense it. The only thing that we own that it could possibly desire has already been stolen, and I know that you suspect the demon of that crime, too."

"I do. Very strongly," I admitted.

"Then it must want my life."

"I'm not so sure about that. It's acting uncharacteristically by playing cat and mouse with you. If experience tells me rightly, these spirits strike swiftly and directly with a purpose. I think that if it wanted you, it would have killed you by now."

"You mean if its controller wanted me dead," Isobel corrected me. "What if this demon is bloodthirsty for its own sake, is conceited enough to require a virgin sacrifice of sorts? The rules could be gravely altered. It could stalk me for as long as it wants before it takes its pleasure." Isobel shivered.

I couldn't speak. I was terrified that she might be right, but part of me beat wildly against it. I sat in dismal contemplation, prompted to roll the confrontation in the Western Woods through my head one more time-

_Horseman!  
_

How wondrous, Ichabod's cry, even as near to death as I had been. The sound of his voice had been the ultimate validation that his life had not been taken by my stepmother's bullet. And I recalled how the Hessian paused, turned, forgot me completely-

Forgot his _purpose_-

_Recognition._ Words of compassion, one shred of mortal sympathy...

"Isobel!" I exclaimed. "Have you ever considered addressing the demon? Asking it what it wants?"

"You mean hold a séance for it?" she asked, horrified. "Katrina, it already spoke through me once- and as an impostor, at that! It had its chance! What I don't understand is why I didn't sense it, why I didn't feel something amiss as I do when it follows me in the street."

"Isobel, it gave you a delusion!" I realized. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became. "Just like it gave one to the lunatic who confessed to Erickson's murder. Only yours was more temporary, to render you insensate of its presence. Both delusions were given under the orders of its controller. The demon didn't have a choice. It did what it was commanded to do. It could hardly have spoken for itself."

"You sound as if you sympathize with it," Isobel murmured unsteadily.

"To a point, you come to detest the controller more than the entity itself."

"There is some wisdom in that, sister," Isobel said. "But do you know what agony it would be- to be possessed by a demon without benefit of a numbing delusion? It's agony enough feeling it even within close proximity."

"No one will force you to do it. I certainly will not. I'd do it if I could, for I feel it's the only way."

"I shall consider it," Isobel said bleakly. "Let's give your husband a chance. Perhaps he'll turn up something more."

"I hope that he does," I agreed, "for all our sakes."

"I wish the demon didn't insist upon remaining invisible," Isobel muttered through clenched teeth.

"What was that?"

"I wish it would permit itself to be seen. I'd feel a lot better if I knew what it looked like."

"Demons can be _seen_?"

"When they want to be," Isobel said with annoyance. "I have never actually laid eyes on one, and few have, as they generally prefer invisibility. But on rare occasions..."

"What does legend say concerning their form?"

"Some possess human or animal form, but frequently, they are shape-shifters. They appear as whatever they want to be. Whatever suits their purpose. Invisibility, sadly, suits all purposes."

I mulled this over for a while, finding nothing conclusive, but remembering something that had been bothering me. "I'm puzzled by something," I began. "You said that Messengers speak for souls that are either too backward to speak in person or cannot do so for...other reasons. Perhaps it's impertinent of me to ask, but Gabriel Erickson isn't disgraced like Ichabod's father for something that he committed in life, is he?"

"No," Isobel replied. "I'm sure of that. He was a man of valor. Either he is just shy, or he has other business to attend to."

"Other business?"

"His family told me that he was heavily decorated for his courage and leadership during the Revolution. He's probably a B.A."

"B.A.?"

"Battlefield Angel. I'm sorry," Isobel laughed, her color returning. "There are wars taking place all over the world, at any given time. The Angels attend battles to serve as guides, succor for those killed in combat. The souls of men fallen in battle are potentially the most disturbed."

"You're telling me," I muttered.

"The Angel's job is to prevent that, if possible."

"The Hudson highlands must have had a shortage of them during the War."

"It's not surprising. The Colonies were a newborn protectorate, and fairly peaceful despite the growing fractiousness. There's a first time for everything, and for North America, the Revolution was it. I've seen more troubled war casualties than I care to admit. The worst cases are violently troublesome, especially the Redcoats. There's an inn on Raleigh Avenue that's been haunted by one for over twenty years. I couldn't get near him. He threw pillows and books at me, finally resorting to oil lamps and crockery when I failed to leave. Though I did leave after that!"

"The Fairfield?" I gasped. "Raleigh Avenue is a stone's throw from Karrigan Square."

"The one and only," Isobel answered. "They've boarded up the room that he's claimed as his own, but they can't keep him from stalking the kitchen. He steals things. Crocks, pots, pans, cheese graters.  He's fiendishly attached to that sort of thing. They have to rip down the boards every so often and clear the loot he stores in his room. It was the strangest case I'd ever seen. The proprietor thought that a séance was the solution to his problem, but Chris and I never even had the chance to set up."

"If Ichabod and I ever want a night out of the house, then I'll be certain not to book us a room there," I mused. "Gracious!"

Isobel was smiling. "It's as laughable as it is pitiable," she sighed.

We finished our tea and spoke or mundane matters, eager to put the supernatural behind us for once. We were interrupted at length by a distinctive series of taps on the door.

"Christopher," said Isobel, rising to let her brother in.

I took advantage of the disturbance, though I was reluctant to leave. "I should go. David's probably hungry by now." I followed Isobel to the door. Christopher nodded at me respectfully despite his embarrassment, walking past us quickly to deposit his purchases in the kitchen. Isobel giggled on my shoulder as she embraced me farewell.

"We owe you so much," she said, suddenly serious again.

"You owe me nothing," I reassured her. "Just remember what we discussed. As much as I wish we didn't, we have a considerable advantage over the constabulary in this case. Even if Ichabod can find the man, the demon's reckoning lies with us."

"Nothing could drive it from my thoughts. God see you safely home, Katrina!"

I hailed a cab immediately outside the Magellans' tenement, and I leaned into its swaying dark corner the whole way home. The mere thought of Reverend Burris and his customer made me ill. No woman should suffer being looked on in such a manner.

David was a little surprised at how fiercely I hugged him when I walked through the door, but rather than question, he just hugged me back. I was overjoyed to find him as safe as I had left him. With that afternoon's revelations weighing dizzily on my mind, the air seemed to pulse with disquiet. I was drained, too, by the return to what had happened six months before. The Archer's heiress loomed forever in the darkest corner of my consciousness.

Only later, as David and I sat reading, did it occur to me that perhaps I was feeling Isobel's terror. That, possibly, she was transmitting the sensation to me. Was the demon about? Taken by shortness of breath, an irksome lightheadedness... I suddenly went very still, feeling my temples throb and my cheeks whiten. Turning the pages of my book by sheer force of will had become a chore. The current page fluttered weakly earthward from its eerie suspension in midair. I found my throat thick when I tried to swallow.

David looked up from his text in concern. "Is something wrong, Katrina?"

"No... I just feel faint. I'm going upstairs to lie down for a while."

I wonder if David noticed that the second bolt on the front door slid itself clumsily into place as I climbed the stairs.

I changed into a warm dressing gown and sprawled out on the bed, setting to work on the anklet, hoping the task would clear the unwanted haziness that had settled upon me. Stringing the beads in a multicolored pattern on either side of the cardinal bone had a somewhat calming effect, as I had hoped. The opal ring secured a place directly to the right of the bone. I paused before beginning on the left side to open the ring box.

I studied the curious teardrop for a few moments. I was not familiar with its purpose, but as my eye happened to wander across the room, I spied the folded square of tissue on my dresser- and knew. I fetched it, shaking the tiny feather into one palm as I held the glass tear in the other. My head began to ache in protest as I immaterialized the feather and made it reappear seamlessly within the glass bead. This I strung to the left of the bone and finished off the strand with a delicate seed rainbow.

I tied the finished product around my right ankle. I studied it, oddly pleased by the imbalanced effect created by the opal ring and the dangling feather-tear. I continued my handiwork, stringing the ivory disk carved with _For the Protection of a Loved One Against Evil Spirits_ on the second piece of cord, murmuring a charm for each weaving knot with which I secured it. I sent it floating over to my dresser, noticing how quickly I had to let go, to let it drop. I had a vague inkling of what was happening- what I was doing to myself despite my body's protest- but I was too stubborn to care.

Ichabod would not be home for another three hours. My head ached more fiercely than ever, and I nonchalantly (a sign of denial, I knew) attributed it to his absence, to my pining for his presence. Although, that _was_ a factor.

I'll sleep for an hour to pass the time, to rid myself of this, I thought, curling up against the pillows. _Just for an hour...  
_

I woke to the light but lingering touch of Ichabod's lips against my forehead. "I missed you," I cried softly, slipping my arms around his neck. He kissed me gently on the mouth, regarding me with grave concern, lifting my chin as we drew apart.

"My fairy sprite has a fever. Does she know that?"

"Yes," I murmured, "and only her gallant knight, Sir Rational, can quench it."

"I mean a real fever, Katrina. You're burning up."

"Oh?" I gasped, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead. The voracious heat startled me. My head still hurt. I sat up. "The herb closet," I said dazedly. "Let me-"

"Lie down," Ichabod commanded, holding me so comfortingly that I had no choice. "Your immune system has run to shambles thanks to my foolishness. I should have known. Your small body can't take that kind of distress for long."

"Our foolishness," I corrected him. "Take one of the packets that I've labeled Fever from the bottom shelf of the herb closet. David will know what to do with it."

"He told me that you were feeling poorly. That's an understatement, love. You'll be delirious if you can't hold still. For God's sake, lie down!"

"How can I?" I cried, realizing that I hadn't thought to put something in the oven. "I forgot about dinner. Let me up, just for a minute. I can make-"

"No. Please leave it to me."

I could not resist such an adorably pleading look. Ichabod kissed me again and rose.

"One fever cure and one dinner are on the way."

"Wait!" I called when he had nearly reached the door. I snagged the ivory charm from the dresser, struggling to float it in his direction. I had known I would be met with the same resistance, the same dizziness. Pitifully, the charm sagged in mid-flight and hit the floor. Ichabod picked it up, returning to my side with a look of increased worry.

"It's a bookmark, if you like...for your protection against harm. I wouldn't want you to lose your place," I offered with a weak smile.

"I shall cherish it as dearly as I cherish the book, my love," Ichabod promised me, taking my hand. His unease was frighteningly pronounced, however. His lips moved as if to say something more, but he only sighed, visibly forcing whatever unnerved him to the farthest reaches of his mind.

"Are you all right?"

Ichabod smiled, shaking his head dubiously. "I'm the one that should be asking you that," he said gently. A third parting kiss, deeper and more reassuring than his trademark, "I am here now." He murmured soothingly, "We shall speak of it...of what each of us has discovered today...when I return. I'll tell David to heat some water, and then I'm going-"

"To buy dinner from the Fairfield? Don't! Anywhere but there." I read his thoughts for his reassurance...and my own. I wanted to show him that I was not completely invalid, even magically.

"Why?" Ichabod asked, confused. "I heard that their cook is excellent. I thought you wouldn't mind giving it a try, gourmand that you are."

"The kitchen is haunted by a deranged Redcoat. I'm not fond of the idea of my high-strung husband having kettles and knives flung at him while he waits for his order at the back door."

"Point taken," Ichabod said, turning pale. "My thanks to Isobel," he remarked, guessing rightly where I had come by such a piece of information. "In the meantime, my dear, please rest."

In his absence, I lay and cursed myself for trying to convince myself that the onset of a fever- all of the signs were there, the signs that I so despised on each rare occasion of sickness that dotted my existence- was a projection of Isobel's terror. Drifting into a half sleep, I knew that Ichabod had perceived the one thing that I feared most in myself. I wondered why I had not thought to tell him that day in his laboratory, when I had gladly brought all other secrets to light. But my wondering was done in vain, for I already knew the answer.


	4. Chapter 4

I paused on the landing to remove the spell-book from my vest pocket and place the bookmark on the crucial page, the one that had told me the true purpose of the pentagram I had taken for an Evil Eye. I gazed at the diagram for a moment, then at the ivory disk. This page had saved her life and my heart. It had protected us both, albeit at the eleventh hour. And now the bookmark with the same symbol had alerted me to danger. Seeing her fail to levitate things was even more unsettling than seeing her succeed. Frowning, I tucked the book back into its accustomed place and proceeded downstairs to the herb closet.

David was waiting in the living room. At my gesture, he followed me into the kitchen. I found one of the fever packets and handed it to him. "Katrina says you will know what to do with this."

"Yes, sir. She showed me." He took it with alacrity and set some water on to boil.

"I�'m afraid we�'re out of raven'�s feet, however," I remarked ironically.

David gave me a puzzled look, but when I did not explain, he asked, "Have you changed your mind about Katrina going to McRaker'�s Alley?"

I became thoughtful. "Yes�."

An unwanted image came into my head, of some scoundrel coming upon Katrina in her present state, as helpless as any ill woman, her powers as weak as her fevered arms. And another haunting image unrolled itself, that of a sudden blow to the back of her unwary head, just as effective on my sorceress as on any ordinary woman.

"Is something wrong?" he asked nervously.

I brought my mind forcefully back to the present. "I�'m concerned over her fever," was all I said.

"Was it because of her powers that you changed your mind?" he asked. I must have looked startled, because he explained, "She showed me this morning. I wish I could do that!"

His cheerful acceptance of phenomena that had nearly cost me my sanity irked me until I remembered how blithely I had accepted such things in my own childhood.

I set out in the opposite direction from Fairfield�s to find a restaurant. High-strung, was I? I have been called worse. I ordered a meal I thought a fevered appetite could manage and hurried home with it. I found her sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows, trying to smile. Her cheeks were too rosy, her eyes too bright.

I sat on the edge of the bed and touched her forehead. She was a bit cooler, but still far too warm. A tiny part of me, I admit, was relieved to see her being vulnerable like an ordinary mortal. Two days ago I had been terrified of her. Since then, I had been utterly awed by her, knowing myself to be more in her power than ever. I had almost gotten used to seeing her as an invincible demi-goddess, and now things had changed once more, and I was worried about her all over again.

"Who told you that you could sit up?" I scolded lovingly.

"I drank the tea, and I feel better already," she insisted, starting to push the covers aside. "I�'ll dress for dinner."

I took hold of her wrists. "You�ll do nothing of the kind. You are not well enough to get up."

"But I wanted to eat dinner with you two! And talk about what we�ve discovered." A bit of petulance crept into her voice, and I found myself smiling as I always do when the child in her comes out. But at other times I catch a glimpse of the imposing matriarch she will be in forty years � and I shall still be her devoted servant, and perhaps occasionally a bit of the playful girl who first captured my heart will reappear.

"Hmm. If you lie down now, I might be able to arrange something."

With ill-concealed relief she lay back down. I frowned at her flushed face and closed eyes for a moment. Blast it, why hadn�t I found a way to end our quarrel sooner? Why hadn�t I realized the toll it would take on my beloved?

But that was not what was truly worrying me. The fever did not seem serious; she would be well in a day or two. The vulnerability it had revealed was what knit my brows together.

David was in the kitchen, setting the table. "We won�t be eating in here tonight, David," I said. "Clear the table and help me move it." We lifted the table together and carried it into the living room, setting it by the sofa. I started to move a chair toward the table, but when I shifted it I disturbed a huge spider that had been making its home beneath it. It was at least the size of my hand. Releasing the chair with a thump and an exclamation, I quickly moved to a safe distance. I was about to get the poker from the fireplace to dispatch the vile creature when David strode over to it quite calmly and stepped on it as if it were a matter of no moment.

When I saw that the boy was safe and the spider was indeed dead, I was able to catch my breath enough to rebuke him. "David, how many times do I have to tell you to be careful around those things? You could have been killed!"

He shrugged. "It was just a spider."

I shook my head. David is really quite bright, but he is appallingly ignorant; before Katrina took him under her wing, his only education was a couple of years of instruction from that gawky scarecrow of a schoolmaster in Sleepy Hollow, and he has no idea how dangerous spiders can be. He behaved as if it were nothing at all when one attacked us in Sleepy Hollow.

"David, you are a very brave boy, but also very foolhardy. How many times do I have to tell you that spiders are dangerous? Most of them are poisonous, you know."

"Of course," he said politely, dragging the chair the spider had been living beneath over to the table casually, not even checking to see if there were any others first. I investigated another chair cautiously before moving it, but this one had no such unpleasant surprises.

David set the table while I arranged pillows and cushions on the sofa so that she could recline on them without having to sit straight up. When all was ready, I went back upstairs to fetch her. In spite of her half-hearted protests, I carried her downstairs and set her on the sofa, tucking a blanket around her before sitting down myself. She sipped a glass of milk slowly while I served her plate.

"You tell first," she said, betraying more fatigue than I think she wished to. "What did Constable Green have to say?"

An involuntary smile spread over my face. "I suspect that Green is going to find a new way to amuse himself, something other than �borrowing� my belongings. He was almost as amazed as I to see my ledger back in my possession." Both of my companions chuckled.

I continued, "Professor Birch and Colonel Dorn have an unsavory mutual acquaintance. A man named Simon Purnell, who seems to have some interest in magic. I suspect he showed Dorn how to get control over the demon, and I think he probably wanted that Sanskrit tablet � he seems to covet such artifacts."

I frowned again. I had intended to ask if she could detect whether Purnell had any power and how much, but that was out of the question now, what with her weakened state.

Katrina distracted me by beginning to rise. I stopped her. "What are you doing?"

She looked at me, surprised. "I was going to get some more milk."

"Then let me get it for you." I stood, but David claimed her glass before I could and went briskly to the kitchen. I gave her a look of mock truculence. "If you try to get up again, you'�re going back to bed."

"You�'re taking advantage of my weakened state!"

"I certainly am." I smiled, but then became grave. If I could do so, so too could another, perhaps with less benign intentions.

She surrendered to being waited on with an indulgent sigh. "Very well," she replied meekly. At least, someone who did not know her might have mistaken it for meekness.

David reappeared with a full glass for her. I went on, "I spent most of today looking through public records and account books. Dorn is guilty of embezzlement, though I cannot quite prove it just yet. I have not been able to figure out where the money he is misallocating is going. Though some of it seems to have moved in the general direction of a newspaper editor, that of the Banner."

She lifted her eyebrows. "Embezzlement? He is guilty of murder, and of attempting to frame another for his crime. What matter if he is guilty of embezzlement?"

"I cannot very well arrest him for making a pact with a demon, now can I?" I retorted.

She thoughtfully toyed with a forkful of roast chicken. It worried me to see her normal healthy appetite so diminished. "All that trouble enslaving a demon, just to settle a couple of old grudges and steal an artifact for his friend? He is in over his head. Are you certain there is nothing else he�'s after? Some grander scheme?"

"I believe he still hopes to somehow gain Mrs. St. James," I said darkly. "Today I spoke to the St. James�. I told them I suspected Dorn of attempting to frame him and advised them to leave the city until I could prove it and arrest him."

�Do you think they will?" She finally made herself take the bite. As for me, I found my own appetite diminishing as well.

"I believe so. They both seem disenchanted with New York since his arrest. Did you visit Miss Magellan today?"

"Yes. I bought your bookmark at the market there," she said, laying down her fork.

I considered, my brows drawing together. "When did you start to feel ill?"

"This afternoon. After I got home," she said, correctly anticipating my next question.

I brooded while she closed her eyes to snatch a moment�s rest. "Katrina," I said decisively, prompting her to open her eyes, "we are _not_ going to quarrel again. There is no reason for you to argue with what I am about to say. You have my permission to visit Miss Magellan, but only when you are feeling well. And even then, you are _not_ going alone again. You are going to be accompanied by me or David. Your sorcery will do you no good if you are caught unawares, and I want you to have a second set of eyes and ears watching out for you." I held her gaze, bracing myself for the arguments that were sure to follow.

"All right, love. If that will put your mind at ease."

I found myself staring at her, stunned. Where had her willfulness gone?

She smiled at my expression and reached for my hand. "You have no idea how glad I am that this time I can do as you wish."

I returned her handclasp tightly. "Not half as glad as I am. You promise?"

"I promise." She grimaced suddenly.

"Are you all right?" I asked quickly.

"Yes. I was only thinking of the market."

"Why? Did something happen there?" I demanded frantically.

"No! I was just thinking that perhaps you are right."

"Really. And what led you to such an unprecedented conclusion?"

"The fact that you generally are, for one thing." She smiled wanly,leaning back against the cushions. "And� oh, it�s just that it is clear that some of the people there are up to no good. Their expressions, the way they look about." She managed to eat a few spoonfuls of mashed potato before continuing. "Isobel and I think we know, in principle, how to defeat the demon."

"Oh?"

"We think it can be defeated the way you defeated the Horseman: by giving it what it wants. Not what its controller wants, but what it wants for itself."

I nodded, impressed. "Excellent. So what does a demon want?" She spread her hands helplessly. A moment later I realized that I had cut my slice of chicken to tiny bits, intent on my thoughts. David and Katrina both looked amused, as they often do when I become preoccupied. Ignoring their smiles, I said, "The Horseman desired his freedom. Perhaps that is all the demon wants. But how to give it to him?"

"I wish I knew."

"Do you know how to gain control of a demon in the first place?" She shook her head, visibly annoyed that she could not answer. "If it was done by a pact, then if we could learn the terms of the pact�. But what can a mortal offer a demon?" Both of them watched me as I cogitated; they are generally quite considerate about being silent when I am trying to concentrate. "The Horseman was controlled by the one who stole his skull. Is there anything one can steal from a demon?"

"I don�t know," she said dolefully.

"But you have shown us where we must look for our answers, my love. I said you were as brilliant as you were beautiful."

David smiled at that, looking from one of us to the other, evidently much relieved that our quarrels were over.

Katrina managed to eat some mashed potatoes and the blanc-mange I had brought for dessert; I had thought it would go down easily even though she was ill. When dinner was over, I carried her back to bed. She circled my neck with her arms and smiled mischievously. "I should make you do this for me every night."

"I will if you wish, my angel," I answered, kissing her forehead before setting her down on the bed. "Do you want another of those medicinal teas?"

"One is enough for one night."

I sat beside her, tucking the sheets over her and checking her temperature. I bathed her forehead with a damp cloth. "How do you feel?"

"Tired." Her tone was petulant again. She was very annoyed with her illness, with being forced to lie still.

"Then I�'ll let you rest."

I began to leave, but she seized my wrist. "No! I don�t want you to go."

It was too early for me to retire, so I said, "All right then, let me get my ledger and I�'ll sit with you. But you'�re going to lie quiet. I expect you to get well quickly."

She nodded once as she settled on the pillows. A few minutes later I was sitting on my side of the bed, my back against the headboard, my wife snuggling close to me as she dozed. I pored over my notes about Dorn�'s and Trevayne�'s finances for a time. Trevayne seemed to be living beyond his means, but not sufficiently to account for the sums which he seemed to be misappropriating. Katrina was right; they did have a grander scheme, but I had no idea what it was.

After jotting some notes about how to continue my investigations, I yielded to a sudden impulse and opened the spellbook that had saved my life in Sleepy Hollow. I leafed through the entire book, but found nothing that might help us in our present investigation.

When I changed into a nightshirt and went to bed, she awoke enough to nestle close to me and put her arms around my neck. She was still burning up. "Katrina, don�t you think you�d better move away enough to cool off?"

"No." Her tone was that of an obstinate child once more. I wondered if she was always this way when she was ill.

"You�'re going to make your fever worse."

"No, I�'m not." She tightened her hold on me. I relented and kissed her warm forehead.

"Oh, very well. But if I were the one with the fever, I feel certain you would be firmer."

"_Mmhm_," she replied readily. I chuckled as I settled down to sleep.

I was awakened shortly after midnight by her tossing and turning beside me. I blinked as my eyes focused in the moonlight. She was frowning in her sleep, moaning very softly as she fretfully turned this way and that.

I grasped her shoulders. "Katrina," I said softly. She frowned harder and squirmed more insistently. I shook her gently. "Katrina!" Still asleep, her little hands beat clumsily against my arms and chest. I began to feel nervous, wondering if my attempts to wake her were only making her nightmare worse. On a sudden idea, I drew her close and kissed her forehead. "Wake up, love!" I said in a low voice.

Her form seemed to go rigid, and then she opened her eyes and gasped. "It�s all right, I am here now, my love," I murmured, trying to soothe her with my caresses. For one second she stared at me as if she did not know who I was, but then wrapped her arms around me tightly, shuddering.

I whispered senseless endearments for a few minutes till her shudders subsided. At last I touched her forehead. Her temperature was normal again, I found with relief. "I hope you are not learning my bad habits," I teased gently, but I was worried. This was the first time that it was she who woke us with a nightmare. I was at a loss for what else to say, but after a moment remembered what she always says to me. "Tell me what you dreamt."

"My stepmother� in the windmill�." She hid her face against my chest. I held her closely, wishing I could do more.

"It�s all right, my angel. You are safe now."

She frowned moodily. "Ichabod, I lived in the same house with her for over a year, and I never suspected that she was� what she was. I thought she loved my father and me." Her face crumpled, and she sobbed on my shoulder for a few minutes.

I shivered, suddenly remembering waking the morning after the Horseman wounded me with the Lady Van Tassel watching over me. Her words had made me shudder even then, when I did not know who she was and what she was doing: "_You slept like the dead._"

Katrina lifted her head and wiped her eyes as her crying subsided. "I did not even know that she was a witch."

"Did you never read her thoughts?"

She sighed. "I don�t often read the thoughts of those close to me, Ichabod. It seems unfair. But when she first entered our lives, yes, I read her thoughts, and I found nothing that alarmed me. She was more powerful than I, or at least more clever."

I drew her head back onto my chest so that she could not see my worried frown. "Your fever has broken," I said, trying to distract her. "It was probably what caused your nightmare, my love. You�ll be able to sleep peacefully now. And you�ll be fine tomorrow."

"I�'m sorry I woke you," she whispered after a moment.

Many times I have said exactly the same words, and always she rebuked me for them. Now to hear her echo me made me laugh in spite of myself. Realizing what she had said, she smiled sheepishly.

"Wake me before you leave in the morning," she said as she nestled closer.

"I thought I should allow you to sleep in."

"No! I don�t like to wake up and find you gone."

I smiled. No matter how often she expresses it, her affection for me is still a miracle I can scarcely credit. "Very well. But I�'m getting breakfast for you. You will need to rest tomorrow, I am sure."

"I�'m going to forget how to walk if you keep this up," she pouted. "You don�t want _me_ coddling _you_."

"I do not get many chances to look after my all-powerful sorceress. I mean to make the most of this opportunity."

She giggled. "Then so shall I. Would you get me some water, love?"

"Gladly." I fetched a glass for her. She drank a bit before nestling in my arms again to return to sleep, but it was a while before I could follow her example. As much as her power had frightened me, her vulnerability was now worrying me far more.

But then, I reminded myself, when she was ill I could protect her as I would have had she been an ordinary mortal. And while she had encountered one witch more powerful than she, they were doubtless rarities. I had very little to worry about, really.

At dawn, I touched her forehead lightly so as not to wake her. It was still cool. With relief, I got up and dressed quietly before going down to the kitchen. I would waken her with breakfast. David came in while I was building a fire and helped me to cook eggs and oatmeal.

"Is Katrina better?" he wanted to know.

"Much. Her temperature has gone down."

"Then I suppose she won�t need another of the special teas."

"I don�t think so. Pour a glass of milk, would you?"

I arranged this simple breakfast on a tray and carried it up to her. She looked very peaceful. I hated to wake her, but I had promised, so I kissed her forehead. At once she wound her arms around my neck. I almost lost my balance and had to lean on the bed to keep from falling on her.

"I am not going anywhere yet, my angel. Eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

"Kiss me first," she commanded. When I had done her bidding � a few times � she released me and ate with an appetite that cheered me. She was still pale, however.

"Let�s see you levitate something," I said suddenly.

She hesitated for a second. Then her spoon lifted into the air. It clumsily scooped up some oatmeal and lifted it in the direction of her mouth, but she could not aim it properly. After a few rather comical attempts, she took the spoon in her hand with irritation. She drew a long breath before taking the bite; evidently the effort had tired her. She was still fatigued from the illness of the day before.

I raised her free hand to my mouth and kissed it. "You are staying home today. You need more rest."

She smiled at me adoringly. "Very well, my love," she said in a dulcet voice. I had not heard that tone from her since catching her in McRaker�'s Alley. Somehow, I had thought it was gone forever. Before that incident, she had almost always done as I asked, and yet it had always surprised me when she did so. Suddenly, I realized that she was as willful in obedience as she was in defiance.

"Thank you, Katrina," I murmured solemnly. Her eyes brimmed over with warmth. I had no choice but to lean over and kiss her again.

"What is your next step in the investigation?" she asked as she salted her eggs.

"To speak to the editor Dorn seems to be associated with, to see if I can find out what Dorn might be getting from him. And I am going to speak with some of Dorn'�s and Trevayne�'s associates. I think you are right, my lovely witch: they have some grand design. I have to get some idea of what it is."

"Senator Trevayne? What does he have to do with it?"

"He has been embezzling as well."

"And you think they are doing something together?"

"I�." My voice trailed off. "Come to think of it, I have no reason to think that they are conspiring, none except�."

"Yes?"

"Except that Trevayne was one of Dorn�'s dinner guests, and Colonel Hawke is suspicious about them both."

"Wasn�t Colonel Hawke another of the dinner guests?"

"Yes�." I put a finger to my mouth as I considered. "I�'ll tell you what I learn tonight, my love." I leaned over and kissed her cheek before rising to leave for duty.

I reported at the watch-house. Though I had not mentioned it to Katrina, there was one thing I meant to do before visiting the editor. Remembering Purnell�'s overdressed companions when I had spoken to him, I had hit on the idea of questioning the fallen women currently in custody.

This was an unpleasant duty, as I expected it would be; rather than answer my questions, these women preferred to make arch remarks that I need not record here. I only hope that Katrina never read _those_ memories from my thoughts. My courtesy to them in spite of their character and my easily inspired blushes amused them greatly. But finally one of them tired of the game of turning my face red and answered my questions. Her hair was a shade of yellow not found in nature, and her face was heavily painted.

"Yeah, I know Simon. Know _of_ him. I wouldn'�t take him on, never mind how much he offered!"

"Why not?" I asked reluctantly.

"After what he did to Sally?" She snorted.

I braced myself. "What did he do to Sally?"

"Put it this way: she�'s living in Bedlam now."

"In the insane asylum? What on earth could have done that?"

"He'�s the one belongs in the asylum, handsome. Old Reverend Burris set them up, and I won�t say Simon wasn'�t generous. But he thinks he�'s a wizard, and he had her lying naked on some heathen altar while he made sacrifices to the Devil."

I swallowed. "Animal sacrifices?"

"Oh, yes. Let the blood squirt all over her. Want to hear how he killed them?" She grinned.

"No, thank you. Did he do anything else� unusual?" I already knew that I was not going to be able to eat lunch.

"Only the usual unusual. He was one of those who requires special services, if you get my drift." The other women present started listing some of those special services. They all laughed loudly as I quickly left the room.

I found it necessary to find a comparatively quiet corner and sit down for a few minutes. My face was covered with a clammy sweat. It sickened me, hearing this degradation of matters that are sacred to me.

Witherspoon appeared at my elbow. "Don�t take it so hard, Crane. That�s what women like that are for."

I looked at him with such blistering contempt that he became offended and walked away, muttering a snide remark about excessive chivalry as he went.

Once I had recovered myself a bit, I went straight to the offices of the _Banner_. As I reached for the door, it opened, and I was surprised by a man I knew emerging briskly. It was Colonel Dorn. He stopped short when he saw me. His apprehensive expression was enough to convince me anew of his guilt.

I was the first to recover from the surprise. "Colonel Dorn. How nice to see you again. I suppose you know that we have arrested Gabriel Erickson�'s true murderer. Good thing he confessed, isn�t it?"

As I spoke, I looked directly into Dorn'�s eyes. As I had hoped, my direct gaze unnerved him. He knew I suspected him.

"Only a constable would take the word of a lunatic," he blustered. "I always knew that St. James was no good."

"Give my regards to his wife," I said with a smile before elbowing past him to go inside.

The editor was closeted in his office. I knocked and entered, watching him carefully, and was rewarded with a look I know well. Guilty men have a very distinct expression when they see a constable�s uniform. That telltale expression is the only good thing about these uniforms. But that look was all I got from him during our conversation. None of my questions startled him into revealing what he was up to. I left thoughtful. What could a man like Colonel Dorn want from a newspaper editor? I doubted Dorn had ever so much as read a newspaper. Yet his presence at the office confirmed my suspicions; he had no business being there, unless he was up to something�.

I was going to proceed to my next planned interrogation, but a movement caught the corner of my eye as I passed a pub less than a block away from the newspaper office, a quick shift in the window as if someone had swiftly stepped back from it. I glanced at it before I could stop myself, but then walked on as if I had dismissed it. I continued down the street and turned a corner. I quickly walked around the block. When I peered back onto the main street again, I found Dorn emerging from the pub, glancing around suspiciously. But he looked to the corner where he had seen me turn, not to the one where I was waiting and watching.

Apparently satisfied, he hurried back to the newspaper office without another backward glance. I followed cautiously, trying to keep as large a crowd as possible between me and him, though my care was not truly necessary; he had apparently decided that he was safe. It annoys me that criminals find me so easy to underestimate, but I suppose in the end it is useful. Dorn barged into the office. I wished that it were possible to eavesdrop on his conversation, but there was no access to the editor�s office. But then, the mere fact that Dorn had felt the need to go back told me a great deal. I resolved to continue following him.

Sure enough, a few minutes later Dorn came barreling out. He immediately tried to hail a cab, but it was occupied. He tried again while I watched nervously for one myself, but after failing twice more he began in disgust to walk, his hands balled into fists, his pace quick. I think I could have followed one step behind him undetected, so intent was he on his rage. Satisfaction grew in me. I felt certain I was close to my answers.

I followed Dorn to a shabby-genteel neighborhood, the sort of place where people with more refinement than money live. In between the residences were numerous hock-shops where fine things could be bought at bargain prices, their former owners having fallen on hard times. Dorn went without hesitation to a brick house where he pounded on the door. A butler in a faded uniform answered the door with less formality than one might expect; evidently the house�s owner could not afford properly trained servants.

Dorn said something to the servant, who must have been instructed to turn away callers, because Dorn promptly became angry and raised his voice. "He told me he would be here today! I must see him, it is a matter of the utmost urgency. Now let me in!"

Another voice from inside the house said something I could not catch, and the servant relented and allowed Dorn to enter. I quickly surveyed the windows of the house, but saw no sign of movement. Dorn must be in a back room, not visible from the street.

I had to learn something, anything, about the occupants of that house. Straight across from it was one of the pawning-shops. Quickly I unfastened the infernal silver buttons of my uniform jacket and removed it, draping it over my left arm. I felt naked in my white shirt and vest without a jacket, but there are times when people are reluctant to speak to a constable and yet will gossip endlessly to a civilian.

I entered the shop and let the keeper begin telling me about its wares. Everything in the store, according to him, had belonged to some European aristocrat or famous personage. Most of the merchandise was battered junk, but there were a few items of value.

I luckily chanced to let my glance rest on an Oriental vase which I think was authentic. Seeing my look, the keeper promptly picked it up and announced, "You have a good eye, sir. This is a genyooine China vase, that I bought from the duchess."

"The duchess?"

"Nice lady. Lives right across the street. Many�'s the things I�'ve bought from her."

"She'�s a duchess?"

"French. She and her family fled here during the Terror. I guess she could go back now, but she'�s engaged."

"Engaged? How old is she?"

"Oh, late thirties, I suppose. Still pretty, I must say. Though I�'m not sure a Colonel is an equal match for a duchess, even an exiled one."

"A Colonel?" I frowned. I had thought Dorn obsessed with Mrs. St. James, but apparently he was able to spare some attention for at least one other lady.

"Are you going to buy anything or not?"

I was about to demur when my eye fell on something else. "How much is that?" I asked, pointing to the item next to it, falling into the tedious game of bargaining. He named a price, and I replied, "Too much. What about the smaller one next to it?"

A moment later we had agreed on a price. He wrapped my purchase in brown paper and I tucked it into my pocket before leaving.

I ducked into an alley to watch the duchess� house, still holding my jacket over my arm. I watched until I saw movement in one of the windows. Furtively, I moved to stand just beside the window, straining my ears to hear. There was an indistinct mumble, and then abruptly the words became clear; perhaps Dorn had turned to face the window. The first words I heard made my eye widen and my throat constrict.

"I�'m telling you, he knows too much!"

Another male voice replied. "Yes, he has quite exceeded my expectations."

"Your what? What the devil are you about?"

"He is going to be very useful to us."

There was a brief silence. "And if he proves recalcitrant?"

"Don�t ask stupid questions."

"Then I�'ll ask a most pointed one: what about what you promised me? You did not fulfill our agreement!"

"It was not possible."

"I met my end of the bargain! You�'ve had your promotion! Now I want what you agreed on! All of it, not just half!"

"I told you why I had to change course."

"I won�t forget this, you runt," Dorn fumed.

"I trust you won�t forget certain other things, either," his companion replied tranquilly. The tone then became both more serious and more friendly. "Don�t forget, Dorn. We have much larger things ahead of us than the little favor I had to omit." The voice became lower, more confidential. I could not make out the words of the rest of the conversation, but Dorn�'s tone was becoming more mollified with every sentence.

At length it became evident that Dorn was taking his leave. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor; I did not want Dorn to see me lurking about. I quickly made myself scarce.

I turned a few corners and then hailed a cab. I leaned back into its jolting sway and closed my eyes. I found myself wishing that I had never joined the constabulary, had never exposed myself to the vileness humans are capable of. I was so disheartened by what I had just heard that it was several minutes before I could bring myself to consider a course of action. My mind was reeling from what I had just learned. I thought I knew what I had to do, but I was too shaken to be certain. I needed time to deliberate.

It seemed that Dorn was involved in more than one conspiracy. I did not know what he had bartered to Simon Purnell in exchange for the demonic assassination, but that was not the only mischief he was up to.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the comparatively relaxing task of investigating the personal finances of the editor of the _Banner_. Certainly I was able to piece together indications of spending beyond his official means. His wife, for instance, had been acquiring a great many silk dresses of late. But what was Dorn getting out of it? I had no idea. I even read a few recent issues of the _Banner_ in the faint hope of finding a clue, but aside from reports of local crimes written with more excitement than accuracy and fulsome discussions of the generous donations made to this or that cause by wealthy society ladies, the only articles of interest were some deploring the excesses of the French Revolution, though what such dated events were doing in a newspaper I could not fathom.

It was even more of a relief than usual to return home to Katrina. I found her in the kitchen, stirring a pot of vegetables. She stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. Without a word I took the spoon from her, laid it on the counter and pulled her close, burying my face in her honeysuckle hair.

She wrapped her arms around me and held me in silent understanding. This was not the first time I had returned from duty eager to forget everything I had seen that day, wishing for her presence to wipe it all from my mind. Before we had been married a month I managed to convince her not to ask me what was wrong when I felt this way after a day on duty. These are things I wish I didn'�t know myself; I certainly do not want _her_ to know about them.

With the subtle scent of her hair I breathed in a world where innocence still exists, where goodness is respected and not laughed at, where kindness can be taken for granted. How is it that she lives in the same world as the vile people I spend my days tracking down? And as my medievally minded colleagues?

"Never change, Katrina," I whispered.

After a few moments I recovered myself enough to release her. "You seem to be feeling better."

She smiled, searching my face, relieved at my own relief. "Infinitely. But I stayed home, as you asked."

"Who _asked?_" I retorted playfully, seizing her waist. I pulled her near enough that I could kiss her cheek before letting her get back to the stove.

"I always knew you would get bossy when you got used to me," she declared in mock tragedy as she quickly checked the simmering pots on the stove.

"I was almost used to you," I lied, "but then things started appearing out of thin air."

She giggled, and a moment later several little jars of spices were in orbit around me. My heart gave a little jump at the sight, but I found myself laughing with her. Her playful sorcery was exactly the right antidote to the sordid things I had heard that day.

"Katrina, will you tell these things to release me? I want to go up and get out of this blasted uniform."

The spice jars made one more circuit, this time directly around my head, before returning to their places. "I see the Pickety Witch is herself again," I remarked with an indulgent smile.

"As are you, Sir Rational."

I turned to head up the stairs, but stopped and turned back to her. I slipped my hand in my pocket and found that I was suddenly tongue-tied. Odd, how in her presence I can either speak my heart and mind almost as easily as I can in the privacy of my own thoughts, or else I can scarcely find my voice at all.

"Katrina�." I hesitated. Why, I wondered with exasperation, was I so awkward? At last I managed, "There is a tradition� after a quarrel�." Unable to find more words, I pulled the small parcel I had bought that day from my pocket and tentatively extended it to her.

She smiled at me, shaking her head. And then, instead of taking the parcel, she came over and embraced me again, her cheek against the buttons of my jacket.

"You didn'�t have to do that."

"I saw it and knew it was yours."

At last she moved back enough to take the parcel and slowly unwrap it. It was a necklace with a small pendant, an ivory disk about the size of my thumbnail. Rather than carved, however, this disk was painted delicately with a cardinal about to alight on a branch, its wings just about to fold as it settled.

She smiled at it for a moment before looking shyly up at me. "I� don�t even know what to say."

That words could also fail my sorceress charmed me. "Try not saying anything, then," I suggested softly, and our lips met.

When we broke apart, I took the necklace from her and swept back her sunlit hair so that I could fasten it. As I did, my fingers found another chain.

"What is this?" I asked. I had not seen a necklace on her tonight. I grasped the sterling chain and pulled its pendant from her bodice to see it. My brows drew together at the sight. It was an eerie bauble, a marble eye with its pupil missing. "Good Lord," I said involuntarily.

"You dislike it?" she asked, looking more worried over it that the event truly warranted.

My eyes flickered from the pendant to her face and back again. "Why on earth would you want to wear something like this? It�s� bizarre."

She hesitated. "I saw it, and was� drawn to it."

"I see." I released it, and she promptly tucked it back inside her dress. "Yes, it might be as well to hide something like that."

"You disapprove of it?" she asked again.

"For heaven�s sake, Katrina. Wear whatever jewelry you like. I just don�t understand that design. It seems gruesome for an ornament."

She shrugged helplessly, as if trying to explain. "I had to have it."

"And now you do," I replied, trying to dismiss the matter.

She followed suit. "Did you learn anything more today?"

I sighed, beginning to unbutton my jacket. "Yes. I learned who one of Dorn'�s accomplices is. But every answer I find on this case only raises more questions. Nothing makes sense yet." My thoughts turned to Simon Purnell. What I had learned about him today only confirmed that my initial impression of him had been an accurate one. And he did indeed practice magic; the mandrake root had not been a mere novelty. But after what I had heard today, asking Katrina to read his thoughts was out of the question. She should not have to occupy the same planet as such vermin.

Katrina moved to my side, caressing my cheek. "Ichabod, can�t you tell me�." She stopped herself. "Is there anything I can do?"

"You are right, I don�t wish to talk about it," I said, thanking her indirectly. I hoped that she would not succumb to the temptation to read my thoughts at such moments. I thought of asking her if she were doing so, but did not; I had resolved to trust her, and trust her I should. "I suppose I could use one of your potions for this headache."

She quickly felt my forehead. "I hope you didn'�t catch my fever! You don�t seem to have a temperature."

"No, I'�m sure I didn'�t."

"Then what caused your headache? Did you sleep well enough? I mean, besides me waking you?"

I considered. "Is there any way I can admit that I hardly ate a thing all day without getting a scolding?"

Her eyebrows lifted delicately. "No."

"Then I have no idea why my head hurts."

She gave me a reproachful look, but could not keep one corner of her mouth from twitching. "I should make you stand in the corner!"

She was going to say something more, but I swept her into my arms, moved to the corner with her, and kissed her until she gave up on rebuking me. "Oh, go on and change!" she said at last, giving me a gentle push. "I�'ll make you some willow-bark tea to go with dinner. And you�'re going to clean your plate!"

I grinned as I went up the stairs. It is wonderful to have her fuss over me.

 

*

 

With a light heart and heavy mind, I returned to stirring the vegetable soup. Ichabod's delightfully clever evasion of what scolding I might have given him left me determined to coax more out of him later. But even as I dreamed on the thought, my smile faded a little. It had been all I could do to restrain myself from reading his thoughts. Whatever he had learned during the course of the day troubled him considerably. I sighed, brushing a few tendrils of steam-dampened hair out of my eyes. His trust meant more to me than any revelation of sordid dealings concealed in his labyrinthine channels of deduction. I would not pry. Of what interest to me were the embezzlement charges, save that they provided the means to make an arrest, after all? I stared with resignation into the depths of the soup, finding the cauliflower untalkative and the barley altogether mute until the water began to boil.

David wandered into the kitchen purposefully, interrupting my thoughts. He mumbled variations on an unrecognizable word under his breath until at last, obviously discouraged, he turned to me.

"What's the French word for spider?" he asked.

"_Araignée_," I replied, laughing in spite of his uncertainty. "Why?"

"I'm trying to remember the names of those animals and insects that you taught me. I _knew_ that," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Better to ask than to forget," I encouraged him. "Now, use it in a sentence, and you'll have it once and for all."

David knit his eyebrows, breaking suddenly into a mischievous grin. "_Hier soir_," he announced proudly, "_j'ai écrasé une araignée_."

"You crushed a spider yesterday evening?" I asked with amusement, adding some pepper to the soup. "God forbid that Ichabod was anywhere nearby!"

"Actually, he was. The spider was in the living room, under a chair. He crossed its path while we were moving the furniture around for you. I know that he would have jumped on the chair had he not been dragging it! I tried hard not to laugh, really, I did... but it was pretty small, and only a wolf spider, at that. Harmless!"

"Let me guess," I began, mock-lecture style. "Ichabod assumes that all spiders malicious enough to frighten him are poisonous and he told you something to the effect that your life was put in peril simply by your looking at it."

"I swear that you can read my mind sometimes," David mused, continuing on his way into the living room.

I flashed the contents of the steaming pot an ironic smile. As an afterthought, David's voice called back over his shoulder, "Where's Ichabod?"

"Changing."

"Never mind. I'll see him at dinner."

I heard David's footfalls continue on the stairs. I sighed, turning from the soup to rummage in the herb closet. I had promised Ichabod willow-bark tea, and that he would have- so I thought. The jar that I usually stored the bark in was empty. Why had I not recalled that I had used the last of it to make Ichabod a sleeping draught on the night that he had invented onion torture? I was annoyed and disgusted with my own forgetfulness. I had nothing else mild enough to substitute, and I highly doubted that my husband wanted to end up drowning in his soup. After a few moments of silent fuming over the empty jar, the solution presented itself. I stood, broadening and sharpening my focus as I returned to the stove.

_Isobel, can I ask a favor?  
_

I frowned. Not only was there no answer, but I also could not sense her presence in the distant flat. Wondering if the fever's residue still clung to me, I resorted to what Isobel had so appropriately referred to as "shouting."

_Isobel, can you hear me? _I called voicelessly.

_God, you scared the life out of me. Again,_ came a faintly irritated reply.

_Christopher? _I twisted my lips in mild annoyance. _I need Isobel. Is she there?  
_

Christopher's hesitation shook me. _No...  
_

You let her go out alone? I shot back before considering what Ichabod would have done if he had heard me say it. I searched frantically for a sign of Isobel in the outlying area and came up with nothing. I shivered.

_It's not as if I could have stopped her! _Christopher exclaimed wildly, making it plain that he was worried out of his mind.

_I don't understand,_ I scolded him. _You at least could have followed her.  
_

Indeed you don't understand, Lady Crane. There's no following her anywhere_ when she gets like that!  
_

Like what? I asked, petrified.

_Moody. Sullen and unpredictable. She goes into these gloomy trancelike fits every now and then. She'll snap at me, telling me to leave her alone. There's not much I can do but listen to her. You don't know how awful it is....  
_

There's something that you're not telling me, I informed him, narrowing my eyes.

_It's not my fault that she never told you about the ones that come to her of their own accord!  
_

What?

The tables are turned sometimes, you know.

I don't like this talking in riddles, Christopher. Kindly stop.

Look! I'm sorry! She scared me a little... a lot, fine, a lot! She said she was tired and wanted to rest for a while. She wasn't feeling well yesterday or this morning-

Please tell me you aren't joking! I cut in, chilled.

_Sadly, no. I'm sorry I fail to appease the trickster in you this time. Anyway... she went to bed a few hours ago. The next thing I know- about ten minutes ago, now- I hear the front door slam. I called after her like crazy, even raced down the stairs after her. She turned and gave me the most incredible look.... I... I have never seen... oh, God. She turned around and kept walking. I was... I was scared witless, all right? I let her go. She's gone wandering before, so I figured-  
_

There's a demon on the loose, you fool!

And who was I ever to stop her from facing what she chooses to face? I mean that. After a certain point, I have no influence on her decisions, Christopher lamented.

_I think that I do understand, _I replied, somewhat humbled. _Promise me that you'll keep an eye out for her return, at least. But in the meantime, can you tell me where you keep your herbs?  
_

Wh-Why?

I need some willow bark. That's why I started this conversation in the first place, believe it or not.

In the far right kitchen cupboard, Christopher responded dully, _but I don't see what good it'll do you.  
_

Plenty, I reassured him, locating a few strips of the bark in a far corner of the cupboard. I transferred them quickly to my empty jar, reassured by the smooth transaction that I was no longer indisposed. _Be sure to tell Isobel that I will return to her thrice what I borrowed.  
_

B-Borrowed? stammered Christopher.

_It's not my fault that Isobel didn't tell you that I can conjure objects, _I responded crisply, satisfied that I had returned his peevishness whit for whit.

I left him to his consternation, fetching the bark from the cupboard to prepare it for steeping. As I did so, my worry for Isobel only increased. No sign of her abroad. No trace of a reply. I prayed silently that she knew what she was doing by closing off all access to her consciousness. Christopher's remarks had been disturbingly cryptic.

"Katrina, is the soup supposed to smoke in such a fashion?"

My husband's voice broke my reverie. With a cry, I dropped the remaining shreds of willow bark into the steaming teacup and rushed to the stove. I took the soup off the heat quickly, grateful that Ichabod had returned before it had begun to burn in earnest. I didn't realize how badly I was shaking until I nearly dropped the pot in transferring it to the counter. Ichabod grabbed a couple of dishtowels and carefully took it away from me. After he had placed it on the table, he steadied me with a concerned look. I grasped his arms, breathing shallowly.

"Still a bit lightheaded?" he asked gently. I heaved an inward sigh of relief. He did not sense any other influence behind my disorientation.

"Yes," I permitted myself to say. Which was true, to say the least!

"Then sit down. I shall set the table for you."

"Oh, but that's-"

"Final," Ichabod assured me authoritatively, kissing the top of my head.

David was somewhat disappointed that I refrained from feeding myself telekinetically that evening, but Ichabod pointed out that soup is somewhat harder to keep under control than a forkful of eggs. In fact, I was having a hard enough time keeping it under control manually. My fingers shook inordinately. Ichabod's subtle glance over the rim of his teacup was enough to tell me that he was still watching my every move with sharp-eyed concern.

"I think you should go to bed early tonight," he informed me after David had been sent upstairs and the dishes had been cleared. I sat curled up in the crook of his arm as he flipped through his ledger. I felt as cold and immobile as the gray late-evening sky outside. I drew up my feet from where they dangled over the edge of the couch, huddling into the skirts of my gown. Ichabod closed his ledger, fixing me with an intense, unblinking stare.

"I think you're right," I replied. "I must have chills."

He held me closer. "I shall do my best to allay that, then, before I tuck you in. Your eyes are pleading me for the permission to stay up a few moments more, little girl," he observed affectionately.

"I never could help it," I sighed. "My eyes say whatever they want to say without my permission."

"Is that such a terrible thing?"

"When it dooms one to an early bedtime, yes," I laughed, feeling my lingering concern for Isobel subside. Had we not established that if the demon had wanted her life, it would probably have claimed it already? _For the most part, _I reassured myself, but the memory of her sacrifice theory was still fresh in my mind....

The door shook abruptly, battened by a series of unusually violent knocks. The knob twisted fitfully. Ichabod rose stiffly, clearly annoyed at having to release me.

"Are you expecting anyone?" he asked me quizzically.

"No. Are you?"

He approached the door with his usual cautious bearing. Propelled by instinct, I followed him. The instant his hand came in contact with the doorknob, he gave a convulsive cry.

"Oh-hhh!" he choked, his tone matching the squeamish one that I had heard so often before upon his coming in contact with blood.

"What is it?" I demanded, feeling my stomach lurch as he backed away from the door. He only gasped and gestured feebly. I took hold of the doorknob, letting go just as quickly as he had.

"It's hot!" I cried. We both jumped a foot when the knocking ensued. Ichabod swayed, clutching the arm of a chair for support. I steeled myself and turned the doorknob swiftly. Isobel stood on the doorstep. She looked-

_Dreadful.  
_

I backed up, trying vainly to hide my shock. Isobel's hair was free of its usual neat plaits, tumbling just past her shoulders in a horrific tangled array. Feet askance, she stood in a pose that was absolutely menacing.

"Isobel," I said, struggling to keep my voice from rising in panic, "won't you come in?"

Isobel strode aggressively across the threshold, driving me backward another few feet. I heard Ichabod stifle some exclamation into his palms. Isobel made a strange sound low in her throat. A sound that resolved itself into bizarre, halting speech. She smiled crazily.

"You hide well," she grated, eyes moving between the two of us with wicked delight. "I think, it take me all night to find you, _argh! _But no, here! You smart, coming to the city," Isobel added roughly, pointing a finger at Ichabod. "Smart you live here, not so smart coming to _woods _for working, yes? But good thing you come, I say, after ending!"

Ichabod knew before I did. He took one close gasping look at Isobel- at her outstretched, _crooked beckoning finger_\- and was out cold. She huffed in the same growling tone, impatient, as if she had been through one too many of Ichabod's swooning routines.

"He do this _always?_" she rasped incredulously.

And it was then I heard the accent, realized how unpracticed the English was....

Her face... dead-white... a shade that I had only ever seen...

The blue undertones of Isobel's violet eyes blazed to the forefront of her glare.

_Those eyes were not Isobel's eyes!  
_

I choked on a scream. Christopher's words came to life before my very eyes. "What in God's name do you want from us?" I demanded in hysterical fury. "_What in God's name?_"

"Katrina?" echoed David's alarmed voice from the top of the stairs.

"Keep him there," the Hessian informed me in a terrible whisper.

"Go back to bed, David... I... I fell asleep on the couch. I had a nightmare. That... that's all... please, go back to bed!"

"But Katrina-"

"Now!" I cried. I heard his footsteps dash in the direction of his room.

Isobel- _possessed!-_ advanced upon me carefully. Even her body, small and fragile in a gown of faded lavender cotton, seemed transformed. And with each footstep- _clink! _I reeled backwards onto the couch, sobbing. The Hessian stared down on me through Isobel's captive eyes.

"You are this afraid?" he grunted, making a pitiful gesture.

"You almost killed me," I moaned thoughtlessly.

"Whose fault, eh? _Her_ fault, _ich denke!_"

"Yes," I muttered, that familiar freezing hate galvanizing my fear.

"_Ach so, höre gut zu! _You listen, good stepdaughter. She say that word once, I learn. Only she not say good. _I _say good. You help me, I help you now."

"He-Help?"

"_Ja. _This demon try to get her, your friend here?" the Hessian asked, using Isobel's hand to point at her heaving chest. "Sorry I must come this way. But must. Try to get her, _nicht?_" he repeated.

"We... think so," I whispered numbly. I shivered with so high a frequency that the tremors resolved my body finally into one taut, steel-solid nerve.

"_Ach, _but I think no. I think it need something _from _her?"

"How can that be? The tablet's already been taken. And after the demon was already in someone's control, like you- oh, have mercy, forgive me!- so I don't see how-"

"This contro-control?-" the Hessian faltered- "take something else before take tablet. Not from her. From someone else, maybe other place. Missing piece, _ein bißchen_." He stared at me desperately, as if my comprehension were a matter of life and death. But certainly not _his!  
_

"How... can there be something else? This, this _ein bißchen-_"

"Little piece. Missing little piece, I think you say?"

"Of the tablet?" I asked incredulously.

"_Ja. _Words not all there."

"Words!"

"Control take piece... need for... for... to slave!" the Hessian snarled, no doubt racked by the hateful memory of my stepmother.

"This piece, is it-"

"I know nothing about, just know _this!_" he barked. "Cannot say!"

"I thought you were damned. Why are you here now? How is it that you were allowed to come back?" I demanded. I could not take it for much longer. Isobel being worked like an overgrown marionette...

The Hessian gave me a strangely human look, tapping one delicate hand to Isobel's chest. "One last good thing here, I want- just one, _eins_. And I am here. Not so crazy in death any more, you know. I remember not why I do... do many things..."

"Crazy?" I asked softly, finding that I had leaned forward ever so slightly.

"But you all remember that way. So no use," he growled with a brief shrug, closing Isobel's eyes in a pained fashion. I cried out as Isobel's form crumpled to the floor, abandoned.

I started to tremble again as my nerves unwound themselves. Slowly, I sank down beside my unconscious friend. Her own breath returned slowly. I took her wrist, finding a pulse gathered there. And then, I remembered Ichabod.

I left Isobel, rushing to my husband's side. He had not fallen very far, since he had been leaning in a half-crouch on the arm of the chair. I shook him, pleading.

"Ichabod, please hear me! He's gone now! Please, love, wake-"

"_AAAAAAAH!_"

Ichabod was jolted awake by my touch, his hands clamping down on my arm so hard that I could have sworn he meant to amputate it. I caught him in a fierce embrace, rocking him as my mother had once rocked me. He sobbed on my shoulder, and soon I was sobbing with him. He clenched his hands into tight fists against the small of my back.

"It's all right.... It's..." I cried, too incoherent to offer verbal reassurance. There were too many implications. Too many answers that opened shadowed doors on new questions.

"It _was_... _her_... wasn't it?" Ichabod gasped wretchedly.

"No," I whispered. I had been wrong about my husband's first impression of Isobel's appearance after all. "It was _him_."

"_Mmmnh!_" Ichabod groaned, as if he were physically ill. I stroked his hair with unsteady fingers, pressing his face into the crook of my neck.

"I shouldn't have opened the door," I said stupidly, knowing that there had been no other choice regardless. If necessary, the Hessian would probably have seized an axe from the neighbors' wood shed and cut the door down. _With Isobel's fragile arms! _I thought, shuddering. I glanced over Ichabod's shoulder at her still form.

"You said... You said that... he's gone?"

"See for yourself," I said quietly, indicating Isobel.

Ichabod turned, his terrified eyes downcast. He glanced back at me quickly.

"She's not... gone too, is she?"

"No. She is breathing."

"I... see..."

He slipped away even as he tried to pull me back against himself. I cried his name over and over, finding that I had strength beyond my own as I gathered him up carefully and heaved him into the chair. Drained, bewildered, hysterical- I did the same with Isobel, laying her out reverently on the couch. Her cheeks had regained their color. As I folded her arms across her stomach, one of her hands clasped mine with calm certainty. I yelled in surprise as she opened her eyes.

"Katrina... I... Oh, Lord," she murmured, sitting up and running her hands over her body, through her wrecked hair. She did a double take as she studied me, moaned softly when she spotted Ichabod unconscious on the chair. "Jürgen's gone, isn't he?"

"Jürgen," I repeated. I tottered between depraved perplexity and overt fury. "_How can you be so calm?! He possessed you and came pounding on our door! He scared my husband into the next life, for all I know!_"

Isobel's eyes- her own violet ones- filled with desolate tears. "He frightened me to death too, Katrina, when he came to me this afternoon! I remembered the visions that you gave me, Katrina, unbidden... I was ill with them all evening, all night... and before I knew it... I was being called on by what I knew according to your account to be a ruthless murderer! Hear me out!"

"I shall," I muttered wearily. I could not fight a power outside the circle of my own.

"He... I... I almost couldn't listen. I almost didn't calm down. Do you know what it's like to have a presence like that fill your mind? One that you assumed shackled in an unspeakable place?"

"Yes and no," I said bitterly, shutting my eyes against the pain.

"If he hadn't managed to calm me down, Katrina... But I remembered my place well enough, for Heaven knows I'm one of so few who they can turn to.... I- I chose to listen to him, Katrina. Because I remembered that he couldn't have slipped away from his penance without a good reason. The _only_ reason permissible, in fact."

"He explained it... as best he could. Some bizarre form of self-redemption, I gather."

"Yes," Isobel said guardedly. "That is the best way to describe it. It is very complicated."

"Then I won't trouble you for the details. They don't matter to me. What I want is answers."

Isobel took a slow, wondering breath. "He told me his story, Katrina. He told it as clearly as you told yours without saying a word. I was..._ mesmerized. _To the point of the deepest pity that I have ever felt, Katrina."

"Then, by all means," I said almost challengingly as I moved quickly to Ichabod's side. "Tell it."

"First, tell me why you're mocking me!" Isobel cried miserably.

"Do I have to speak to answer that as well?" I asked, broken, stroking Ichabod's near-lifeless cheek. Her pleading desperation disarmed me completely, however. "Forgive me," I cried, "but this terror is one we had not thought to relive!"

"And forgive me for assuming that you would be willing to do so in order to find the solution to a potentially greater threat."

"Potentially greater?" I whispered, clasping Ichabod's slack hands in mine. I would will him back into consciousness. What Isobel was about to say, he needed to hear. And by God, sensate or not, he would hear it!

"My sister, it was not the demon that spoke on the night of the Erickson séance, though the demon did have something to do with it."

I was speechless. Ichabod's hands tightened upon mine.

"Then what...?" I breathed, horrified, watching as Ichabod's terror-filled eyes slid open. His lips moved soundlessly, finally finding his voice. He glanced sidelong at Isobel and shivered.

"As... As I have always said-" he began, but whether he halted purposely or out of sheer fright, I was not certain.

Isobel nodded gravely, reading his thoughts and finding that they matched her own. "It was a mortal. Someone as tangible as you and I."

I slid my arms around Ichabod protectively, shaking my head wildly. "How is that possible? You said the demon had something to do with it... How can you know this? And be so _calm?_"

Isobel floundered a few moments, lost in a sea of thoughts too great to mouth all at once. She was brought to tears yet again. "I have to begin at a place that seems so irrelevant... but it is a story you asked to hear, Katrina, not a few moments hence."

Ichabod heaved a tortured sigh, still caught in the nightmare web of his blackest subconscious imaginings. He cried something unintelligible, bending turning sideways into the corner of the chair. I sat on the arm, rubbing his back.

"Tell it," I said resolutely.

"Yes... do..." came Ichabod's muffled reply of accord.

"Jürgen was a baron in Hesse-Kassel, in southern Germany," Isobel began, her eyes fastened on the wall above us, her voice traversing a mutable timeline backward across an ocean and half a continent. "He willed me to see nothing before that- nothing of his youth, nor his childhood, nor his parents' beginnings. I was confused at this, even questioned it as best I could without voice. But soon I was drawn in by the whirlwind of what he was willing to tell. And this is what I saw.

"As a baron, he was lord of considerable land and peasantry, a hard worker and fair dealer. A widower, too, for I saw the grave of his childless wife just within the gates of his manor. Her death of a plague-remnant was the first blow to his sanity, apparently.... Oh, Katrina, how can I begin to tell you how these things are communicated by the dead? It's not exactly like what you have shown me. Similar and yet not... of infinitely more depth, sheer _feeling. _Because that is all that they have left, all that they are made of unless altered in some way by the meddling of mankind's magic!"

"Or womankind's," I heard Ichabod murmur into the chair's stuffing. His hatred of my mother's killer ran nearly as deep as mine.

"He loved his wife with a rare intensity, did Jürgen," Isobel continued without missing a beat, trance-like. "It was not only her death, though, but the sickness as well. He was taken with it for weeks after her passing... a half-nightmare and half-fever sleep of malignancy that tortured his thoughts as much as his body. What things he dreamed while in his throes, the servants dared not guess. But his cries... his successes in battle gone haywire, his myriad night rides home to his sweetheart laid in waste. Perhaps these were the nightmares that the fever-plague gave him. Perhaps blood demons waited around every corner for him, followed him from illness into the land of the living. And so when he woke, when he recovered, which no one had seemed to expect save for an unusually hopeful new member of the household, come from court to care for his wife as she had ailed, a longtime friend- he armed himself well. Much too well. Weapon after weapon was chosen and bought by this haunted baron whose eyes gleamed more and words said less. He carried them with him everywhere. Hung them from the walls of his spacious home. And by summer, the hopeful lady come from court, the flame-haired Hannelore, was his lover.

"She was a beauty, to be sure, given to singing and long walks alone in the countryside. But whenever Jürgen was not at court or abroad, she was by his side. She was oblivious to what the illness had done to him, as were most. His newly silent, intense manner scared those who knew him and those who did not. Who would not be frightened of a man who had enough cutlery to equip a small army? And who was given to fits of temper now and then, when vexed... by mundanities rarely, but more often by fits that resembled those of his illness. And, too, came strange bouts with a distant calm in which he would speak so clearly and calmly- most usually while at court and on business, accordingly, and luckily, most said. All the while, his fierce devotion had been fastened upon Hannelore tenfold, lest he lose her, too. He denied her nothing and gave her all. He did not know that his servants would chance to spot her slipping something into his drink or whisper something in his ear as he drifted unaccountably to sleep after a meal. He had not realized that this had happened during his sickness, and surely no one could speak, for the household-"

"Was charmed!" I breathed darkly.

"I saw through the hindsight of his bitter ghost these things that brought him to his end. The sickness itself had been a conjuring of Hannelore's, an evil sorcery so ancient that its art is rarely revived. This sickness, these murmurings- _were designed to give him a skill that she did not have. _The conjuring of a power, Katrina. Can you imagine it? Yet, all the while, he was kept ignorant by a facet so well crafted in that I can't begin to unravel it. He was reading his associates' minds and did not even know it. His transactions grew all the cleverer, all the more profitable. Little wonder he spoke less, though he did not know why. And his lovely girl at home, fire-haired, sitting by the fire.... harnessed his ill-created power through a capture, a binding. God knows what agents Hannelore had from the world below, and God knows what ambitions. She used what she learned from his forays at court and in business... she joined forces with a strong, able, and equally ambitious soldier, captured his heart with her body and soul as she had Jürgen's... and was found out by the very prince that she and her soldier planned to overthrow. Beheaded for treason, not witchery. Naturally, Jürgen thought her innocent, wrongly accused. He could not take another death... could not take the shame of being stripped of his title, which I have held from you until now: Chancellor Royal. Confidant to the prince, disgraced for having loved such a woman, for possibly conspiring with her. How much more than that would it take to unhinge a man already haunted by fever dreams rife with blood and hunger? How much more would it take to drive that man to use his weapons to revenge the injustice, the unspeakable loss, the shame that he would never understand the root of until his passing on a foreign shore? He requested to fight in the Revolution, having nothing left to live for in Hesse, nothing left to appease but horror, nothing left to avenge but Hannelore's death... the memory of his wife's... his own, in truth."

Isobel stopped. Her head hung between her hands now, and her tears darkened an already dampened spot on the floor. Ichabod and I could say nothing. The horror of knowing too much and waking each day to hear more had become an absolute to us.

"What you're saying, then," I ventured at length, struggling to grasp the full scope of Isobel's soliloquy, "is that Hannelore used her own strength- dark, ancient arts- to give Jürgen a skill that she lacked- but that she needed to use to meet her own ends, and do so through him because of his position? Once the power was his, she used it? Why could she not have given it to herself?"

"Even you know the answer to that," Isobel chided. "When did any magic, whether it be black or white, make provision for the alteration of one's own powers?"

"Never," I whispered. "You are right. I know this to be true."

"What can be learned of the Erickson séance by way of this account?" Ichabod asked weakly, having at last lifted his head.

"Just as Hannelore spoke through Jürgen, planted words and lies with his compatriots to advance her own cause... so has someone spoken through me, to further their own. To divert the blame. Katrina, in my irrationality that day... I neglected to recall that demons cannot speak. Cannot even begin to. They speak in imagery, as did Jürgen, though he could have spoken had he wished. That is why I know now that... whoever it was... used the demon to learn of when the seance would take place... the manner of the power that I would use... and used..."

"A harnessing spell such as Hannelore's," Ichabod finished flatly. "A mortal seized control of your power. _Used it!_"

A sob caught in my throat. Ichabod was looking directly at me as he spoke, a terror that could not be voiced seeping into his eyes. I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth, wondering how such clear tears could run from sight so darkened by death and tragedy.

"Yes, Constable Crane," Isobel said quietly. "Your fears are not groundless. Nor are mine, Katrina, for they are the same."

"What can be done?" Ichabod demanded, rising from the chair wild-eyed, rounding on Isobel. "Between the two of you... the three of you, for heaven's sake!... there must be something."

"Jürgen said... said that," I faltered, still sitting on the arm of the chair, my lips plastered by tears to the knuckles of my trembling hand.

"That's what I must ask you!" Isobel cried urgently, stumbling off the couch and kneeling before me. He... he did not me what he needed to say to you, nor how he came by it. And so seldom is there an answer to how these creatures come by such revelations, either! But... I was... only a host," she said somewhat unsteadily, as if she could not quite grasp what had come upon her. "The recipient of the message is now free to tell whom she pleases... if she would...."

"I need to know what the tablet looks like. In painful detail," I told her. "Specifically if there are any cracks, or... missing pieces."

"No," Ichabod answered for her, sounding for all the world as if his bolt was shot in earnest, "there are no missing pieces. Christopher described it for me. It is approximately two feet long and one foot wide, the entire slab three inches thick. The edges are worn but even. The bottom is squared and the top comes to an unusual peak. In a word, it is pentagonal. Is this not true, Miss Magellan?"

"Yes," she responded. "Katrina, what are you getting at?"

"Jürgen said that there had to have been something taken before hand in order to enslave the demon. What he called a 'missing little piece.' A piece obtained from another source or person, most likely by chance."

"I have only ever known it to consist of what we had in our possession," Isobel murmured, crestfallen. Ichabod wrung his hands in despair, drawing close in surrender... and as his head came to rest on my shoulder...

"How do you know that the bottom is the bottom?" I asked suddenly.

"What?" Ichabod blurted.

I glanced at Isobel. "I said, how do you know that the bottom is the bottom? It's never been translated, and you certainly cannot read it. If the tablet is pentagonal, then perhaps-"

"There exists an oddly shaped piece that fits over the point of the pentagon, making the tablet a perfect rectangle!" Ichabod cried lifting his head. "My love, of course!"

Isobel looked both terrified and hopeful. "Does that mean that whoever's controlling the demon now has both pieces? Why would they want both pieces, if only one is needed to enslave the demon?"

"Because," Ichabod continued, breaking away from me and pacing madly, "I have a feeling that your half is the key to breaking the spell. To freeing the demon. What controller of such an evil minion would not want to possess both halves of the puzzle to prevent meddling of any kind?"

"That means... 'words not all there!' Jürgen said that, too! So the inscription itself is incomplete, and in order to break the binding between demon and its master, it must be..."

"Read," said Ichabod, halting in front of Isobel. "Miss Magellan, this demon does not follow you because it desires your life. It desires the one thing that you can give it: the sound of your voice pronouncing the most perfect syllables of ancient Sanskrit that it could ever hope to hear."

"And I cannot even read the script!" she moaned.

"Ichabod, are you sure of this?" I asked.

"Not completely, but fairly. It was the fever of the wound inflicted upon me by the Hessian that brought me to a surety that the person who had his skull was behind the killings... and it is the fever of the terror inflicted by his visitation that brings me to this guess. Miss Magellan," Ichabod pleaded fervently, "do you know of a way-"

"Yes," Isobel said with despairing resolution. "There is. Katrina and I have spoken of it, and now, I believe that I have no choice."

Ichabod looked at me questioningly. "I suggested that... that she hold a séance for the demon. But now that she mentions that they cannot speak..."

"I apologize that my fear gave way to my forgetting of it!" Isobel cried. "Please do not think that it's impossible, although... because it's not. It will speak in images. And it will be agony, my sister. But I will do it. I must."

"We will talk of this in the morning," I said emptily, taking Isobel in my arms. She felt so light... so wasted as I held her. And as I gazed at Ichabod over her shoulder, the light played with his sunken, reddened eyes and cast a deep shadow across his cheek.

"I love you," I mouthed. "You have braved more than you shall ever have to brave again. No lady has ever had such a hero. Thank God you are mine!"

And flashing me a broken smile, he leaned on the hearthstones and wept.

Strangely enough, I emerged from the ashes with the least amount of burns although I had been the one most consciously exposed to the flames. I eased Isobel onto the couch and told her to wait, if she did not mind. She nodded, dazed but understanding.

I led Ichabod upstairs, knowing that in his present state he would not have minded being carried in the least if it had been in my power to do so. He was like a doll in my hands as I urged him out of his clothes and into a nightshirt. We let our eyes do the speaking, a silence of complete understanding, unparalleled comprehension. I pulled down the covers, folding him into the softness of the sheets. He came alive then, wrapping his arms around me. I kissed the redness from his eyes and healed the hollow of his cheek with the brightness of my own tears.

"I realize that my nightmares do not begin to compare with what lurks in my waking hours," he sighed, resigned. I kissed his mouth and shook my head.

"Only on certain days," I reassured him, finding the strength to smile for his sake.

"Isobel's waiting, my love. I believe sleep will find me sooner or later."

"She can wait a bit longer."

I held Ichabod until he slept, which was a mercifully short time. I knew that he had not even had the presence of mind to consider how I planned on dealing with Isobel. The fact that he entrusted the matter entirely to me without giving it a thought reassured me of something at last: we had struck a balance, found ourselves equals in this game of unrecognized control. When a husband falls his wife must rise to the occasion; when the wife falls, the husband. I would no longer fret over scattered onion rings or being startled now and then by his entrance. Because he did not see these things as inadequate at all. He saw them merely as _me_. And with his last breath before sleep, he proclaimed that his love... was_ me_.

I came down the stairs slowly, fixing a careful eye on Isobel. She had curled up on the couch, resting her head on her hands. I went to her, put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's nine o'clock," I said gently. "Christopher must surely be looking for you by now."

"I... I had forgotten," she whispered, sitting up. She closed her eyes, fair brows knitting in deep concentration. Isobel opened her eyes with a sigh. "He has fallen asleep. I am not surprised. Last time, I was gone until ten."

I sat down beside her. "Isobel, I tried to reach you earlier, before dinner... because I was out of willow bark. How trivial it sounds! But I received no answer from you, nor could I sense your presence in McRaker's Alley. I resorted to yelling my psychic lungs raw, only to startle Christopher."

"You spoke with him?" Isobel asked, but it was more a statement than a question. She was nodding as if something made a lot of sense to her suddenly.

"Yes, and he was reluctant to tell me that he did not know where you were. I chided him."

"You could not reach me because I was not myself," she laughed ruefully. "I was _out_ of my mind. Jürgen saw to that."

"He made some remarks that... make me curious. Does this happen often... these spirits coming to you of their own accord, as he implied?"

"I don't doubt that possibly he exaggerated to cover for his own lack of a handle on the matter. No, not often. This is only the third time that the metamorphosis has happened in full. And as for his references to my moody fits- as doubtless he did mention them- do come more often. And they are caused by the deceased giving me their grief."

"The... other two times... if you don't mind my asking-"

"Quite harmless relatives," she said softly. "Wanting to talk to Christopher, if you can believe it. They scared him to death. Which is why he probably did not elaborate. Which is why he fears me in a sense."

"What do they say to him?"

"They tell him not to wish for what he was not born with, however noble that desire. I was meant to carry this. He didn't like being told by a great-great grandmother and a third cousin whom we had never known."

"You know these things because he told you after... after you..."

"Came back to myself? Yes. I made him," she said with a somewhat helpless grin.

"What a pair you two are," I murmured, hugging her.

Accompanied by the tap of the painted-ivory cardinal, the click of marble at our throats was completely accidental. And changed what we knew about the amulets forever. Over her shoulder, as the empty palm and eye aligned, I caught a glimpse of a form on the stairs that I had never seen before....

Someone whom I knew, however, with all my heart. But the amulets swayed apart, and she was gone. I stiffened in Isobel's embrace. She looked at me strangely.

"Katrina?"

"I saw someone on the stairs."

"When?"

"Just now," I gulped. "Isobel... turn... and tell me what you see."

She glanced over her shoulder. I saw her eyes widen slightly as her finger crept curiously to her lips. I looked again, too. And I saw nothing.

"_She is so lovely!_" Isobel breathed. She rounded on me so suddenly that I almost fell off the couch. "You _saw_ her?"

"Yes. And I do not see her now."

I fixed my eyes on Isobel's amulet. Hers fixed on mine.

"Take it off," I told her. She obeyed. I put it around my own neck so that the amulets touched. What I had seen on the steps was gone. But my ears, with a sharpness not their own, picked up the clanging of pots and pans from somewhere on Raleigh Avenue. Something only someone in the Fairfield should be able to hear. And before other voices could close in, I thrust off Isobel's pendant.

"How do you shut them all out?" I cried, gasping for breath.

"Comes with the territory. Give me yours."

I hesitated for a moment. My skill required a consciousness, not just an uncanny ability to pick up dead whispers and presences. I gave her the eye reluctantly. "I don't know if you'll know how it's done," I said helplessly.

Isobel put my amulet on cautiously, as if she expected a phantasmagoric rush of another sort. But her bland look told me that expectation died instantly. She glanced at a brass clock on the mantelpiece. She squinted as if her head had begun to hurt. The clock slid a few feeble centimeters and stopped. Isobel bowed her head, breathing in short, mirthful gasps.

"And how do you get past the sheer effort of budging things even a breadth?"

"Comes with the territory," I said with a smile, shrugging. I realized how serious the matter was, however. "We cannot make a practice of this, you know. These amulets- however alluring these symbols of our power- are not meant to be used in league. They are a warning. Meant to establish a respect for the difficulty of what each of their makers... whoever they were... could do. Separate, strange, but still a pair. Why is it that I feel no evil in them, and yet this revelation shocks me so?"

"You said it yourself. We could not understand each other completely until we knew for sure. Which is why we were allowed to find them, I believe, each of us in our own time and way. Sisters we may be," Isobel said, grinning, "but even sisters must be cautious."

"Of misunderstandings such as my contempt when you came out of that... that trance," I suggested darkly.

"And you stealing my willow bark," she teased. "Ah, but I know. I shall get thrice in return."

I sighed, satisfied but haunted. "I don't like the thought of you traveling home alone past dark," I told her. "You could stay here for the night."

"I wouldn't dream of suffering you the inconvenience!"

"It is none," I said firmly. "We have a spare room, after all. Wake Christopher. Tell him to lock himself in your flat and assure him you're in good hands for the night."

Isobel was quiet for a good while. I saw her eyebrows rise indignantly, but her mouth promptly set in a stern line of command. I laughed aloud without the need to worry about Christopher hearing me. Though, what I would have given to hear that unspoken conversation!

"He was petulant and scared to death, but relieved, too. He protested about my staying here, but I reminded him that he is after all my younger brother even if by a few minutes and that he'd full well listen if he knew what was good for him," Isobel informed me with a sigh. "So I shall stay."

I showed Isobel to the guest-room, directed her to the washroom, and after a brief but meaningful good night, left her to her own devices. I was amazed at how composed someone who had struck me from the first as infinitely delicate could be.

The smoke from the candles that I had just blown out guided me with warm curling surety to Ichabod's side in the darkness. And though he slept still, knowing that I had joined him at last, he turned to receive me, claiming my embrace.

The mornings on which I am the first to rise are rare, but nonetheless, that was the case the next day. I woke from a thick, dreamless sleep to find that I was still wound in Ichabod's embrace (and he in mine) as we lay pressed cheek to cheek. I slipped away from him with reluctant care. Though I stumbled as my feet touched the carpet, I was able to stand on my own, strong and wary of the possibility of a new danger. For the sake of my loved ones, I would stand immovable.

The clock on my dresser read six thirty. I donned my green dressing gown and grabbed a blue one from the closet, which I left hanging on Isobel's doorknob as I passed. I felt ridiculously important as I entered the kitchen. I was no longer cooking for three, but four.

I sliced apples before I did anything else. Ichabod's fondness of them was just as endearing as his irresistible fragility. The water for tea had just begun to boil when David ambled into the kitchen. He studied the pancake batter that I had left sizzling in a frying pan.

"I had the strangest dream last night," he muttered, rubbing his eyes. "I'd been reading... it was just after dinner. I fell asleep on the book. And then I thought I heard you yelling at someone, asking them what in God's name they wanted."

"Really?" I asked, cleverly feigning amusement.

"Yes... I could have sworn I even got up and called to you, but you told me that you'd had a nightmare and that I should go back to bed. So I went back to my reading... and woke up this morning on top of my book," he concluded, shrugging. "I just hope I'm not given to sleepwalking when I don't know about it!"

"If I ever catch you wandering while you doze, I'll be sure to wake you," I reassured him with a hug, breathing an inward sigh of relief. Sometimes, a white lie is the most effective form of white magic. The last thing that I needed was for David to know that his father's half-killer had entered our home in the skin of Isobel Magellan.

Isobel appeared as I flipped the last pancake onto a plate, wrapped in my blue dressing gown. She took a seat beside David, who was vastly startled.

"What're you doing here?" he blurted sleepily.

"I needed to talk to Katrina last night, so I came. And before I knew it, it was dark. Katrina persuaded me to stay the night for safety's sake," Isobel explained guardedly but smoothly.

"Won't your brother worry?" David persisted.

"No, he'll be relieved. He knows I'd stay put if it grew too late."

"Oh," David yawned. Thankfully, he was too tired to make sense of anything other than what we had told him.

I began to worry about Ichabod as I sat plates of pancakes before David and Isobel. I said as I hastily poured their tea, "I think I ought to wake the sleepyhead." But what I really meant was that I was desperate to reach his side before he actually _did_ wake so that he would not find himself alone.

He slept, much to my relief. I sat on the bed beside him, smoothing his hair. As I had expected, a kiss on the cheek prevented a traumatic awakening. He looked up at me with a timid little smile.

"Your willow bark is highly effective," he said. "It warded off what nightmares I expected to have. Or perhaps it was just _you_."

"That calls for an exceptional good morning kiss," I informed him with relish. He got it.

"Am I the odd one out this morning?" Ichabod mumbled.

"Yes," I said, easing away from him. "Do you think you can eat? No waiting this morning. Your place is set."

"At least let me dress," he sighed.

"You'll... be all right, Ichabod?" I asked, pressing his shoulder lightly. I felt smoothness of the Horseman's scar through his nightshirt. I shivered, lacking the taste for a reminder of what I was trying to protect him from.

"I can honestly say that I have faced one fear once and for all, my love," he said confidently, taking my hand. "Because I know it won't be returning," he added with a wry smile.

"I'll tell Isobel you'll be down in shortly, then, so she'll have time to make herself scarce."

Ichabod looked at me questioningly.

"It was too late for me to send her home alone. She sent Christopher a mental note and accepted my invitation to stay the night. I put her in the guest bedroom and gave her some clothes. And thus, I have learned that I'm not the only one who likes to run around in a dressing gown," I laughed, kissing him again before I left.

"The Lady even knows best how to save me from embarrassment," Ichabod called after me. "Sir Rational is most fortunate in whose bookmark he carries!"

"The Lady would not have it any other way!" I called back, almost skipping down the stairs.

By the time Ichabod reached the table- in full blasted uniform- Isobel was safely behind the guest room door. Ichabod was somewhat speechless as he picked at a large pancake. He did not seem to know what to say to David, as if he feared that the boy had overheard something of the night before. Over time, David had proved unusually good at overhearing things. I managed to get harmless conversation rolling, however, and by the time Isobel returned in one of my old gowns (which I had insisted the night before that she use, as I stored my castoffs in the guest bedroom closet), David and Ichabod were about their usual staid banter of comradeship.

"Miss Magellan, did you sleep well?" Ichabod inquired politely.

"As well as can be expected," she replied mildly. I realized suddenly that her night had not been as tranquil as mine. I noticed the dark circles under her eyes for the first time.

"My apologies that I must be off so soon," Ichabod said, nodding formally to Isobel as he rose and pushed away his half-eaten plate. I gave him a subtly scolding look. Out of playful spite, he made an exaggerated show of spearing two more bites on his fork and swallowing them. He glanced at Isobel with a faintly embarrassed smile.

"Do you torture Christopher so?" he inquired good-naturedly.

"On the contrary, he tortures me!" Isobel said, pointing at her own plate on the edge of the sink. I had not realized that she, too, had left some of her pancake uneaten.

"Oh, off with you!" I cried, although it was Ichabod who pulled me into the living room rather than I who pushed him.

"I shall be jumping at every shadow today whether I like it or not," Ichabod mused as he released me from his parting embrace. "So much for a fear that is behind me when the customary residue is not."

"Then I send this to guard you," I whispered fondly, kissing him back.

"Shadows, beware!" Ichabod murmured into my hair, and he was gone.

I turned to glimpse Isobel vanishing quickly from the threshold between the kitchen and parlor that joined the living room. She had been watching. And I had seen enough to realize her eyes shone with tears. David passed me as I reentered the kitchen. Isobel and I were left alone. She stood on the far side of the table, turned away. I put a hand on her shoulder.

"You're so lucky," she whispered into the palm of her shaking hand. She was crying.

"Hush!" I soothed, taking her in my arms. "You'll find someone. You're barely nineteen, Isobel! You have time."

"Who wants," she asked miserably, "a wife who sees and hears ghosts. Who has made a _profession_ of it?"

"Who wants a wife who can read thoughts and conjure objects at will?" I pointed out.

"He didn't know that you could do those things when he married you," Isobel countered.

"True," I agreed, "but he _did_ know that I was a witch."

"That's true, too," she admitted.

"Come," I said, offering my hand. "Let's get your things. Christopher would probably appreciate it if I returned his sister before noon."

I rode with Isobel as far as the same point of no return at which the cab driver usually deposited me. She paused as she dismounted the carriage when I asked, "You have let Christopher know you're coming?"

"He knows where I am even now," she reassured me.

"The... What we've decided must be done... you'll...?"

"Give me a few days to prepare."

"Two at the most, Isobel," I said with difficulty. "Trust me when I say that time can run out before you even realize that it was running short in the first place!"

"I do," Isobel said with resolution, setting her jaw bravely.

"You know," I began, taken with a desperate thought, fingering my amulet, "if we could switch... I would-!"

"No. Do not even think of it. Are you forgetting the things that you so wisely spoke last night?"

"Yes," I said, ashamed. "I'm... only afraid for you."

Isobel smiled, squeezing my hand. "You don't know how much that means to me, especially when I am usually the one afraid for everyone else, my sister."

"Go safely," I said softly.

"Always, Katrina. For once I can walk abroad knowing that my life is most likely not in danger. Feeling... the presence will not be half as threatening as it once was."

"Then let that be our hope," I whispered, watching her move in the direction of the market and vanish into the crowd. I tapped on the wall of the cab.

"Home, please," I commanded.

"Yes, my lady."

*

 

In spite of the trying evening I had spent, I felt surprisingly ready for the unpleasant task that awaited me. Little as I relished the confrontation ahead of me, I was resolved to make it as quickly as possible, to clear this task from my table so that I could set myself to resolving the supernatural murders.

I felt strangely relaxed. The sensation was so unfamiliar that it took me a few minutes to realize that it was trust. Not the determined trust I had mustered for her that day in my laboratory when she confessed her abilities to me, but a more genuine and heartfelt trust which needed no resolve, it was simply there. For the first time since my mother'�s death, I knew that there was someone who could catch me as I fell. It seemed that each of us had at last submitted to being cared for by the other, after months of muted struggle.

Since our reconciliation, a new serenity had been steadily building between us. Always before I had constantly felt the need to dazzle her. Many things had stiffened my spine to send me back into the western woods after my first brush with the Horseman, but chief among them was the wish to redeem myself in _her_ eyes. After she had seen me hysterical, had seen me faint, I had no choice but to march back into peril. Many times my pride is all that has kept me from surrendering to my blasted cowardice.

But now I felt that we were so solidly joined that no flaw, no weakness could come between us any longer. She had seen me at my worst, and she loved me still. I had seen her at her most terrifying, and I adored her more than ever. There was no more need to struggle to impress one another, and the wildly swinging pendulum of domestic authority seemed to have steadied between us at last � perhaps just a touch closer to her side, I mused with a smile.

As it was Friday, I was obliged to spend the morning on my patrol. I forced myself to eat an apple for lunch; Katrina would not have considered it sufficient, but I was too apprehensive of the meeting ahead to manage any more. And then I set out to see the man I had overheard talking to Colonel Dorn the night before.

"Colonel Hawke will see you now," the aide informed me, holding open the door to the study.

As I entered, Hawke fixed with a penetrating glance. I think he must have read my new knowledge in the gravity of my face. He said nothing, but a look of satisfaction crossed his face. He remained seated behind his desk, waiting.

I came to stand before Hawke and regarded him for a moment before speaking. "I have discovered to whom your friends are misallocating funds."

"Really. Who?"

"You."

I said this flatly, coldly. I had begun to consider Hawke a friend, and he had disappointed me. Worse than that, he seemed to imagine, judging from what I had overheard, that I could be drawn into whatever villainy he was planning.

He smiled. That was the last thing I expected.

"Excellent, Crane. You have passed the test."

"Test?"

He rose and gestured to the comfortable chairs by the hearth. "Please, sit down, Crane. I shall explain everything."

I hesitated. I was so angry, so disappointed, that I would have preferred not to sit with him as if I still considered him a friend. But curiosity drew me on. I took a seat as I had before.

He offered me a cigar, which I declined; I never indulge. But this time I did accept his offer of a well-diluted drink; I had a feeling I would need it.

"And did you also discern for what purpose my friends and I are embezzling?"

"I have a theory or two."

"I am anxious to hear them."

"You are trying, for some unfathomable reason, to drag our nation into Bonaparte�s wars." I examined his face, which showed nothing. "Or else� this is some sort of attempt to seize control of the Congress, to slant some elections to your wishes. �President Dorn� is not an idea I relish."

Hawke grinned. "�President Dorn� is not my aim. His reward will be great, but not quite so great as that. Don�t tell me you imagined that he was the mind behind this scheme. I expected better from you."

Absurdly enough, I felt sorry to have disappointed him. My pride was stung. "I know a few things about Dorn you do not," I retorted, only half-bluffing. I doubted Hawke knew his accomplice was consorting with demons. "But no matter. I have enough evidence to arrest you both, and Trevayne as well."

Hawke did not look in the slightest intimidated. "Without even knowing the nature of the great scheme we are enacting?" he asked with a smile.

I took a swallow of my drink. "Well?"

His face grew at once dreamy and purposeful. He paused, intent on some vision of his own, before he spoke.

"A crown has been cast in the gutter. It needs only the right man to pluck it out� and place it on his own head."

I stared at him. "You cannot be serious."

"But I am."

"A King of America?"

"Emperor," he corrected.

I had not been so dumfounded since being informed that the murders I was investigating had been committed by a headless ghost. "This is a democracy, Hawke."

He answered with the assured air of one who has been through his arguments many times. "As was France, for a few minutes. As was Greece at one time, and Rome. But in time they all crowned a king. Monarchy is the natural form of human government. Democracy has no staying power."

"The era of hereditary rule is over," I replied scornfully. "This is the Age of Reason, of the rule of Law."

His eyebrows raised. "For one who calls himself a Federalist, your mouth reeks of Republican liberalism."

"Not Liberalism. Equanimity."

"I have a great vision, Crane. And you can be a part of that vision. In return for your cooperation, you can have every constabulary in the States following your methods, by imperial decree."

"My cooperation. Now we come to it. You won�t have it, but I am academically curious as to what you imagine it might entail."

He still looked utterly calm, completely in command of the situation. My words seemed to have made no impact whatsoever. It was like arguing with Katrina.

"A man in my position needs to know everything that is going on. You must realize that your deductive skills have made you the ideal spy."

I was offended. "That was certainly never my aim."

"Often we find ourselves taking steps we did not plan on the way to our objectives," he replied comfortably.

The entire conversation seemed unreal. His notions were simply too farfetched to be taken seriously. But what was serious was my disappointment in him.

"I used to like you," I said bitterly.

He leaned back in his chair, relaxed. "You shall again. You will find that association with me has many benefits."

My face must have been drawn in lines of contempt. "No," was all I said, and I rose and turned to go. I would present the evidence I had unearthed to the High Constable that very afternoon, and Hawke and his friends would be in custody by nightfall.

Hawke stood as well and spoke to my back. "I suggest you not go till you�'ve heard all I have to say."

Curiosity again. Had I been Adam, I should have eaten the apple before my spouse. I stopped, without turning back to him.

"Surely you did not think I would not have an additional inducement or two to offer? Constable, you must know that when rewards do not suffice, penalties must be introduced."

I turned and regarded him coldly. I stepped closer to him, looking down at him from my greater height, knowing this would annoy him. But his face betrayed only calm confidence.

"Are you threatening me, Hawke?" I asked softly.

"Yes. And I hope you have not underestimated me sufficiently to imagine that my threats will not be effective ones."

I raised my eyebrows inquiringly.

He sat down, taking his time. When he was comfortable, he gestured to my chair, smiling. I remained standing.

"As you can imagine, an enterprise such as mine requires many favors, both given and received. It so happens that I am in a position to offer a man almost anything he wishes. And recently a very interesting wish was expressed to me." He looked at me appraisingly. "I am told that Mrs. Crane is a very beautiful woman."

Instantly I was cold all over. I said nothing, but frantically reminded myself that Mrs. Crane was quite capable of looking after herself, whatever this diminutive tyrant had in mind.

"I know you are acquainted with my friend Simon Purnell. You know of his interests. Magic is one. And the other, I believe you can deduce."

I remembered the wretched females who had kept Purnell company the day I spoke with him and my coldness was burned up in towering rage. I took a step toward Hawke, ready to throttle him, but he calmly raised a pistol. He must have had it ready just out of sight in anticipation of this possibility.

"Calm yourself, Constable. We have much to discuss yet. I would prefer it if you sat down."

I stepped back, my eyes flitting between the barrel of the gun and Hawke�'s face. His surface calm was underlaid by a watchfulness. This was the look of a man playing a difficult game which he knows that he can win. His confidence shook me. I continued to stand, glaring at him.

"Purnell has an associate you may know, at least by reputation. The Reverend Burris. I know he has had a few brushes with your colleagues in the course of his various activities." I did know of Burris, and his "various activities". I am not generally a violent man, but my hands itched to smash Joseph Hawke to pieces, even as oblique as his implication was.

"The Reverend Burris and you have a mutual acquaintance, Constable. The Lady Crane. It seems she made a purchase from him not long ago, and caught his eye."

He reached into his vest pocket and withdrew something I recognized: a long silver hairpin engraved with my wife'�s name, a wedding gift from her aunt in Sleepy Hollow.

"Lady Crane dropped this in the market at McRaker�'s Alley the other day. I had a great deal of difficulty inducing Simon to part with it. Perhaps you could return it to her." With numb fingers I took it, balling my fist around it until my knuckles whitened. He raised a scornful eyebrow at me. "I would not allow _my_ wife to do her shopping in McRaker�'s Alley."

There was nothing to say to this. Or rather, there was a great deal, but I did not bother.

"Burris was kind enough to alert his patron Mr. Purnell to the existence of a very elegant beauty with an interest in magic. Purnell was naturally very intrigued at this, and contrived to catch a glimpse of the lady. Not only is she lovely, but Purnell thinks that she has some talent for sorcery. She apparently used a voice charm to induce Burris to agree to a low price for an amulet she wanted. To sum up, both of his obsessions in one.

"Mr. Purnell has offered me many things which are quite valuable to me in exchange for my help in procuring the� companionship of Lady Crane for him. Help which I assure you I am in a position to give, and I also assure you that there will be no evidence with which I can be connected to the event. Purnell has grown more and more eager for this favor, and his offers have escalated. But I have refused, because I considered that you might be of more use to me than his further help. Of course, if I was wrong�."

I knew perfectly well that Katrina could defend herself. At the same time, this vilely malicious intent towards her frightened me. But between the two of us, we could protect her.

"You were wrong," I said coldly. "For your own sake, I suggest you not try any moves against Mrs. Crane. I assure you that you will regret it."

Again I turned to go. I was stopped by Hawke'�s steady voice. "For your own sake, Constable, I suggest that you stay until I have said all I have to say. Or you could learn it the hard way."

I turned back to him. "I am losing patience, Hawke. What is it?"

He made himself more comfortable in the chair and drew on his cigar before answering. "You examined the body of Gabriel Erickson?" I nodded, surprised. "You saw the wound?" I suppose my nauseated expression must have been answer enough. "Do you wish to die in that fashion, Constable?"

"What are you saying?"

  
"I have been making inquiries of my own, among your peers, Constable. You do not sound to be a man who wishes to die with his boots on."

I ignored the implied insult. "What are you driving at, Hawke?"

He smiled.

"I ordered the murder of Gabriel Erickson."

I frowned, studying him.

"It was a favor to� one of my associates. I think you can deduce which one, but I shall not speak the words aloud. Framing St. James was part of the favor, but your clever deductions required me to dispense with that part of it."

My mind raced, connections I should have made earlier falling into place. If he spoke the truth, he was the one who controlled the demon, and therefore perhaps a match for my sorceress. That was why the Horseman had come through Isobel to tell his story. The warning, that it was possible to harness the magical powers of another, was a timely one. And the Hessian was trying to atone, not only for his crimes against the residents of Sleepy Hollow, but for those against my country.

But I could not be certain, not quite yet. I would have to draw him out.

I chose my words carefully. "And how did you induce that lunatic to commit the murder?"

Gloating appeared briefly in his eyes. "Madmen can be persuaded to anything, if one knows the correct approach."

My knees were feeling unsteady. I sat down at last, studying Hawke in silence. I had to think. Somehow, I had to find out what I was wondering.

Contempt glinted in his eyes. "So you will not compromise your patriotism for the sake of a woman who is too good for you by half, but you will for fear of a gruesome death."

My spine stiffened at these words, but then, Hawke was not a man whose respect I wanted anymore. "Would you do as much for your duchess?" I demanded, trying to sound petulant. I think I succeeded.

He laughed easily. "Not for a moment," he acknowledged. "So, Constable, I take it I may rely upon your cooperation."

I looked at the hideously over-ornate Oriental rug on the floor while I tried to think of what to say, what to ask. I thought of asking him what I wanted to know directly, but deemed it best not to tip my hand, not to let him know what I knew. "How are you able to obtain so many favors for your accomplices?"

Misapprehending the motive behind my question, he smiled with satisfaction, and contempt took up permanent residence in his gaze. He believed that he had me now. I hated him. "Fear not. Even though I have had to be� firm in my persuasion, you shall still be amply rewarded for your services. And in time you shall find that you are fond of me once more."

"How?"

"Ah, the ever-searching mind. Would you care for a demonstration? Name something you want. Someone you want removed from your path, perhaps?"

"No!"

He shook his head with amusement. "Your conscience is far too strong, Crane. You need to learn practicality."

"My wife claims that I am too practical already," I mumbled without thinking.

"Women are like that. Now, as to what I shall expect from you. My greatest opponent, the one man who can sway public sympathy sufficiently to block my path, is Senator Alan Remington. He is a Jeffersonian with all the democratic ideals you have been parroting. Quite charismatic."

"I know who Senator Remington is," I snapped. "I voted for him."

Hawke chuckled. "I guessed as much. Now, while Remington does not know the extent of my plans, he is astute enough to have gathered that he and I do not sing the same tune. I need to know what he is up to, and especially if he is up to anything that might change the citizenry�s perception of him."

I glared at him. As if I could degrade my methods in such a fashion. But until I was certain Katrina was safe, I would have to play his game.

"If there is anything to learn, I shall learn it," I said through stiff lips.

"I know you shall. You have too many reasons to do so to allow you to fail." He stood. "Report back to me in a few days with what you have learned." He extended his hand to shake, but I rose and walked past him, ignoring it. He chuckled, but I am certain that was merely a cover for his annoyance. He is as proud as I am; the snub had to offend him.

"And, Constable." His voice stopped me just as I reached the door. Once more I paused without turning.

"Bear in mind," he said, "that I shall be keeping up with your activities. Don�t think you can double-cross me."

I glanced at him over my shoulder before walking out the door, knowing that my unease would show in my countenance. And that unease would probably reassure him, because like so many others, Joseph Hawke had underestimated me.

And he did not know it yet, but he had chosen to make the one threat that he would live to regret.

There are many reasons that Katrina has been the only woman in my life. One, of course, is that feminine hearts are seldom charmed by the ability to detect traces of common poisons by their chemical reactions and the other such accomplishments I boast. But another is that during my years on the constabulary I have seen crimes that made passion seem sordid and dangerous, crimes that sickened my soul.

I had never thought I would be able to shake the ugliness of the crimes I have witnessed. Only a total innocence such as hers could have cleansed me. During the first days of our marriage, her ardor had stunned me. I would never have believed that such passion and such purity could coexist � though even in my shock I had thanked God that it did. And I knew exactly how delicate that was, and how precious.

_"Never change!"  
_

More than once I had whispered those words to her in the dark. She was too rare a blossom to be bruised. Hawke and his vile friend had sealed their own fates.

The watch-house chanced to be between Hawke'�s home and mine, otherwise I should not have bothered to report that I was going home early. Before this past week I had never missed duty, no matter how ill I was, and so this caused many raised eyebrows, and a few speculations about why I was so eager to return home, speculations involving my exquisite bride. I was too agitated even to blush at my fellow constables� words.

I arrived home in the middle of the afternoon. I do not know what Katrina was doing, but she dropped whatever it was to come into the foyer when she heard me. She was beautiful, as always; almost every time I look at her, her beauty and the fact that she is mine astonishes me anew. And her utter prettiness and sweetness was a dizzying contrast from what I had just left. Her eyes widened in alarm at the sight of me. I suppose I must have looked rather appalling; I know that I was shaking and ashen-faced, and my disquiet was far deeper than the kind I derive from the ordinary horrors of my normal duties.

She took charge without a word, grasping my cold hands to draw me to the sofa and making me sit down, loosening the tight belt over my uniform jacket, feeling my forehead and checking my pulse. These loving little attentions of hers, something which was missing from my life from the time my mother died until the time Katrina entered it, were too much in the face of the peril to her. I burst into tears.

At once she enveloped me in her embrace. I wrapped my arms around her and gathered her close, as if a tight enough grasp could ensure that she would stay out of the clutches of our vile enemies. She settled in my lap and kissed the top of my head, murmuring comforting nonsense, rubbing my back gently. It was she who was in danger, and she was trying to look after me. The irony only made my sobs deeper, more wracking.

"Ichabod, you must tell me whatever it is," she said softly. I nodded, but could not catch my breath; the tears still shook my whole frame.

A few minutes later, when I was still beside myself, she said slowly, "Ichabod� I won�t do this unless you wish me to� but would it be easier for you if I were to simply read this from your thoughts? So that you would not have to speak it?"

My first impulse was to refuse, but as I thought of it, trying to relate the afternoon�s conversation was too daunting a task. And she had been kind enough to ask first, which deepened the trust in her that was building in me. After a long hesitation, I nodded, burying my face in her silken throat.

We sat wordlessly, I continuing to weep steadily, she stroking my back as she delved into my mind.

After a moment, her hands paused. "This Colonel Hawke � he actually thought he could induce you to�." Her voice trailed off indignantly. I was gratified by her faith in me.

"He had some excellent motivations to offer, Katrina," I told her in a choked voice. "Keep reading."

I knew exactly when she saw to what I was referring; she stiffened in my arms. I tightened my embrace and whispered fiercely.

"I will not let him get to you. If they kill me, I will rise from the grave to protect you!"

"Don�t talk like that!" she gasped.

"But it�s true. I�d rather die than�." I could not give the awful prospect words.

She stroked my hair and rocked me in her arms until I was finally able to stop crying.

"So that dreadful man was Simon Purnell," she said in a low voice.

"You saw him?" I asked, appalled.

"The other day, when I was buying your bookmark. When I dropped my pin. He was staring at me." She shuddered.

"Why didn�'t you tell me?" I demanded furiously.

She sighed. "Ichabod, if I told you every time a man looked at me, you�d be too busy committing murders to ever investigate any."

She was right, of course. In the last six months I had been learning that there are disadvantages to having a beautiful wife, and the fits of red-hot rage that overtook me when I saw disrespectful glances cast her way had surprised both of us.

I loosened my hold on her and reached into my pocket for the silver hairpin. She took it from me slowly, her eyes downcast a bit sheepishly.

"Perhaps I was a bit too confident," she admitted.

"I should say so. For all your powers, you are not invulnerable, my dearest one. And we are not going to behave as if you were again." I did not say this with the authority that husbands like to imagine that they have, but as I might have to a comrade in arms. Her nod of agreement seemed in the same spirit. And that was how we would face the peril before us. We held each other quietly. She drew my handkerchief from my vest pocket and dried the tears from my cheeks.

"I know my husband too well not to realize that he has already devised a course of action," she said at last.

"I think so," I agreed, "but I am so distressed right now � I need to consider it more calmly before I can be certain what to do. And I need to find out a few things�."

"Tell me what you are planning, then."

David interrupted us by entering through the front door at that moment, clutching his arm, his face drawn in pain. Katrina promptly left my lap, kissing my forehead as she rose, and hurried to him. I followed quickly. Why hadn'�t it occurred to me that they might send me a warning in the form of a strike against the other member of my household? But this proved not to be the case.

"What happened? Are you all right?" I demanded. I reached for his arm, but my hands were shaking. Katrina eased me aside and gently rolled up his sleeve with her steady hands.

"My arm hurts," he groaned, thankfully too intent on his own pain to notice our distress. "In fact, it aches to the bone! It�s horrible!"

Katrina was examining his arm. There were no cuts or bruises of any kind. "I don�t see anything, David. What happened?"

"I don�t know. I was playing with Colin and it just started hurting. A lot." He pressed his lips together to muffle another groan.

Carefully, I took his hand and examined his fingertips. I found what I expected to find. A problem I could deal with calmed my nerves considerably.

"I do. You were at your reckless habits again, weren'�t you?" At his frown, I elucidated, "You two are determined that I shall never have a moment free from worry. If it isn�t Katrina wandering around dens of thieves, it�s you handling spiders."

His voice rose, pain having shortened his temper. "It was just a wolf spider, for heaven�s sake! And a baby one at that!"

"No, it was not." My voice was authoritative, and the boy quieted to listen to me. "It was a wood spider, whose bite contains a venom designed to paralyze its prey. A victim as large as a human will simply suffer from an ache for several hours, as you are right now. Painful, but not damaging. A wood spider can be mistaken for a baby wolf spider if one is not careful, because the small wolf spiders have yet to develop the characteristic pair of lighter marking lines down their backs." I pursed my lips. "I told you spiders were dangerous. No one ever listens to me until it is too late."

They both stared at me. When I finished, David asked, as if he were very surprised, "You know about spider species?"

I lifted an eyebrow. "I know everything there is to know about spiders. Know your enemy." Though of course, every time that I read a book about spiders I am unable to sleep for days afterwards.

"So can�t you tell the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous ones?"

"Of course," I said crisply. "But by the time one gets close enough to one to be certain, it is generally too late, now isn�t it?"

He began rolling his sleeve down and winced. "You say it�s going to feel like this for hours?" he asked plaintively.

Katrina touched his cheek comfortingly. "I'�ll brew you some willow-bark tea for the pain, David."

"Katrina, kindly leave this to me. I am certain I know more about treating spider bites than you do." Her lovely eyes widened and the corners of her mouth twitched. There are times when I cannot fathom her sense of humor. "Come with me." I led them both up the stairs to my laboratory.

At Katrina�'s urging, David sat on one of the wooden chairs. She stood beside him, ready to do whatever was needed, but I had everything necessary at hand. I unlocked one of the many large cabinets that house my chemicals and took out a large jar of salve, which I applied to his bitten fingertip. "This will prevent infection," I assured him.

"Infection? What about _pain_?"

"Fear not. I have a remedy for that as well." I put a little water in a beaker and then turned back to the cabinet. It contains numerous small jars, each with its own small compartment, carefully labeled and arranged alphabetically.

"I never saw you open that one before," he remarked. "What are all those?"

"Antidotes to the venoms of every species of spider found on the North American continent," I replied briskly. I quickly found the proper remedy; I have them alphabetized by species. When I turned with the vial in my hand, both of them looked as if they were about to burst with suppressed laughter and amazement.

"What?" I asked, nonplused. At that, both of them unleashed guffaws and kept on laughing for several minutes, holding their sides, unable to stop. I stared at them, and my bewilderment only seemed to make them laugh harder. Katrina came to my side and embraced me consolingly, still helpless with mirth. I never did find out what they found so amusing. A few days later I asked Katrina about it again; when she caught her breath, she said only, "Oh, Ichabod, it�s just so _you_!"

I sighed irritably as I mixed a few drops of the anti-venom in the water and filled a syringe with the solution. I injected it into the hysterical boy'�s arm and set about cleaning the syringe while they continued to laugh.

"The anti-venom should ease the pain within half an hour," I said rather testily when he calmed down a bit. "Are you certain that you only have one bite?"

"I don�t hurt anywhere else," he said, still grinning.

"Good. When I was eight, I got about a dozen wood spider bites at once. I was sick in bed for a month. The doctor was afraid it would cause permanent damage, but I was spared that."

"A dozen!" Katrina looked up from smoothing David�'s hair. "How on earth did that happen?"

"Well, it was dark. I could not see to avoid them."

"Dark?"

My veins felt leaden at the memory. I busied myself for a moment putting away the salve and vial before answering, speaking flatly and coldly to keep my voice steady.

"My father had locked me in the cellar."

Their smiles evaporated and both of them looked utterly horrified. David even looked a bit queasy, in spite of his enviably strong stomach. I could not endure to talk about it, so I forestalled anything they might have said by going to the door and holding it open. "The anti-venom sometimes makes people lightheaded. You should probably go lie down, David. Would you sit with him for a while, Katrina?"

As David rose, he and Katrina exchanged a look that I could have sworn was guilty, though I did not understand that anymore than I understood their mirth of a few moments earlier. He mumbled an agreement and headed for the stairs. Katrina looked between him and me with brimming eyes.

"Don�t you need me to�." Her voice trailed off.

"I need a few minutes to clear my head," I answered crisply. "And to take some notes."

Her warm dark eyes searched my face. I think she was reassured to see that my rational mind was in command again, for at length she nodded, only slightly reluctant, and followed David. But on her way to the door, she stopped and stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek tearfully. The gesture almost made me break down again. I am the luckiest man in the world.

I sat down as she left and opened my ledger. Drawing a deep breath, I slowly started taking notes. As always, the process steadied my nerves and cleared my mind. I was going to have to put a stop to Hawke�'s scheme, that was clear, but first I would have to ensure my wife�'s safety. And there were questions I needed to learn the answers to before I could take any steps.

When Katrina entered, I was intent. I kept scribbling for a minute before looking up at her. There was a faint smile on her exquisitely formed mouth, but her eyes were slightly red. When I looked at her, she clasped my free hand comfortingly.

"I see Sir Rational is in command of himself once more," she teased gently.

I let her sally pass by. "There are a few more things I need to know before I can decide how to act. I thought that Dorn controlled the demon, or perhaps this Simon Purnell." I said the name as if it tasted bad. "But now� it could be Hawke. I would not put it past him. But how can I find out?"

She considered. "Ichabod, I could find out. I could read their thoughts and�"

"I�d rather you didn'�t," I said, more brusquely than I meant to. She dropped her eyes. I took her hands. "Katrina." She looked up at me, and I continued. "Katrina, I am not only trying to solve particular crimes. I am creating a method for future generations of detectives to follow. My procedures need to be ones that any rational man could follow. If I allow myself to become dependent on your help, how will my manual for deductive methods read? �Step one: marry a powerful white witch. Step two: find a reliable medium to consult.�"

She laughed, but then her face grew serious. "Surely this is an exception, Ichabod. This is a supernatural murder." She paused before adding, very gently, "My love, you need my help with this. This is my province, after all."

And as always, I had to admit that she was right.

I made a show of reluctance to speak. "My angel, it is my duty to tell you that you are developing a habit which is most unbecoming. You must try to break it."

"What is it?" She looked so distressed that I felt like a cad for my little joke. I promptly set her mind at ease.

"That of displaying better judgment than your husband," I said with all the sternness I could muster. "It is most unladylike. You must endeavor to be wrong more often." By the time I was finished, I could not suppress my smile. She accepted this indirect apology. "But one thing. I do not want you reading the thoughts of Simon Purnell."

"Why not? He is the one who�"

"Because I have some inkling of what those thoughts are. I suppose I cannot stop you, but� I would not allow my wife to read a book with that kind of thing in it."

She looked faintly ill and nodded. Then her face became intent.

"So. His name is Joseph Hawke?"


	5. Chapter 5

In the beginning, I was not accustomed to thinking of my own death. My childhood had been so blithely serene that such thoughts had little place in such a charmed existence. By day I ran the fields and caught butterflies- only to release them again- and by night, I caught fireflies with Glen Haagen and his daredevil companion Abraham Van Brunt.

My mother's death was the first of many changes, of course. The sickness had been so swift, so sudden- that my father had no choice but to call it brain fever in the mindlessness of his grief. In truth, we never knew what she had. Nor did the sicknurse, apparently, who would shrug and close her vacant eyes as if on tears. _As if on tears!_

I cannot forgive myself for not recognizing the signs of water hemlock poisoning. In my grief, I was no more sane than my father, however, and so a fraction of the part of me that had been eternally optimistic and hopeful was laid to rest in the Van Tassel plot with my mother one windy November afternoon. _Imagine!_ I cried on the shoulder of my mother's killer the whole way home. I also wondered if poisoning myself would be forgivable Thereafter. One look at my father, and I decided against even the vague notion that had entered my head.

And then came the Van Garrett murders... and what followed. Death was upon my very doorstep. In one blinding instant, I might have been cut down to the unforgiving forest floor. Truly told, I might not have minded, considering that I believed for a few moments that the only man to whom I would give my heart and soul- my very _existence_\- had been shot. Death was real. Death was everywhere. Death had breathed down my neck.

When Ichabod said that he would rise from the grave to protect me, I was shaken to the core. A tumultuous resistance rose in me. The very possibility of losing Ichabod again was devastating. I would plunder the minds of those wretches for all that their murdering schemes were worth. I decided with cold resolve that I would die before I let them lay so much as a finger on Ichabod. I would discover their plot, and I would be there in my husband's stead. I would _not_ let them take his life!

Decision made, part of me calmly accepted that I would not be alive for much longer. What Ichabod had learned that day, what had reduced him to weeping upon walking through the front door, delivered the last blow. A threat too great to name had entered our lives. A demon let in through the front door. How wrong Ichabod was, even in jest! I had been wrong often enough to settle several lifetimes' worth of marital quibbles.

I held myself responsible. I did not even deserve what I realized I might become- a martyr. As Ichabod's mother before me, as nameless ones from the dawn of time...

_I wished for the first time in my life that I was not a witch!  
_

My condition, my birthright, my very anomaly- had it caught the attention of these unscrupulous men, who thought nothing of using a force both unspeakable and ungodly to satisfy some nameless avarice? My husband's investigation had for certain, for it was he whom they now hunted. But was _I_ an additional danger to my husband and my ward? A prize to be claimed as spoils- to be slaughtered if necessary- if the stakes grew too high? I felt they already _had_.

No, I did not say it, did not even let it show as Ichabod treated David's spider bite, not even as I sat musing on the hateful men whose thoughts I had offered to read: I expected to be quite a different kind of sacrifice than Isobel originally had in mind. How fitting, that black magic was once again proving itself damnably strong. Some sorcery too great was involved in this, some inescapable horror. A horror that Jürgen von Reiker had deemed a worthy enough reason to spend his last stab at salvation on warning us of its peril.

My thoughts echoed stubbornly as I sat beside Ichabod in the laboratory. _So. His name is Joseph Hawke. So. His name is...  
_

"Katrina? You don't mean to do it _now_, do you?"

"No," I replied quickly, shaken out of my dark reverie. "I don't... I don't even know if... now..."

"If what?" Ichabod asked with gentle concern.

"If... to do it while they are awake is the wisest thing," I finished weakly, banishing my inward quailing even farther inward.

"You can do it while they sleep?" Ichabod asked somewhat hopefully, even though his unquiet eyes communicated the same knowledge as mine. Those men probably did not sleep until the darkest hours of morning.

"Yes. It will be more difficult since I cannot slip them some eyebright in their evening tea like I did with you, but possible nonethe-"

"Eyebright in my _tea?_"

I closed my eyes. I felt like banging my head against something hard and unsympathetic. Why was there always one last confession left ungiven? Why did I forget so easily? But I took heart. Ichabod's query was not accusatory. It was curious.

"The night that you invented onion torture... I put some in the tea I gave you... so that I would be able to share your dreams."

He nodded mutely, as if piecing together one last puzzle in the string of them that made up my daunting abilities. "And... did you?" Ichabod asked quietly.

"Yes. It was why I woke weeping with you, in the same instant."

"I felt your presence but could not reach it!" he cried, embracing me fiercely. "But you were _there_. That is what matters. Thank God for that. And..."

"Yes?"

"You noticed-"

"How young you were. The forest trail you wandered alone. The bruise on your cheek... oh, Ichabod! Did... did..."

"You know that you have no reason to fear asking me about anything ever again, my love."

Despite his reassurance, I lowered my eyes against the pain. "Did your father beat you?" I choked, knowing what the answer would be.

"Yes. Locking me in the cellar he saved for rarer occasions," Ichabod replied bitterly.

"Why?" I demanded harshly, staring wildly about as if I expected Levi Crane to be hovering about as his wife had been the night before. "How could he do such a thing to an innocent child? To his _son?_"

"How could he murder his own wife?"

I shook my head helplessly. "Did he disapprove of your interests?"

"He disapproved of everything. The books that I read, the solitude that I chose over companions of my own age, the scars on my hands, even- 'Foolish boy, look what you have done to yourself!' Have you noticed a thin white scar on my back?"

"I wondered where that came from," I mumbled hatefully, deftly procuring the image of Levi Crane bringing a riding crop across his seven year old boy's back.

"One I could grow out of, for the most part, thankfully," Ichabod whispered brokenly.

"I will love it out of you yet," I vowed. We held each other in understanding silence for a long time. David's faint snores from downstairs finally dispelled the haunted pall.

I sighed, kissing Ichabod comfortingly. "What did you give him?" I asked with affection, straightening my husband's collar.

"I don't suppose the elaborate scientific term for an anti-venom would mean much to a sophisticate in the White Arts," Ichabod remarked with an equal measure of adoration.

"I suppose not," I agreed, finding that I could smile for his sake. He would never know of my sense of impending doom. He would be the one to live, after all, if I had any say in the matter.

David slept for another ten minutes, at which point we descended the stairs, our footsteps being the cause of his waking. He yawned, studying us groggily.

"Can I go to bed? I'm not hungry," he murmured absently.

"Your arm?" I asked cautiously.

"Numb but no pain."

Ichabod was greatly satisfied to hear it. With a nudge he gave me leave to see David up the stairs to his room. When I returned, Ichabod was sitting on the couch, staring at the hearthstones that had been bathed with his tears.

"I gave him a dose that was perhaps better suited to a lad a few years older," Ichabod observed candidly. "That accounts for the loss of appetite."

"Please don't tell me that you've lost yours, too!" I begged.

Ichabod gave me a helpless look that said, "Did you have to ask?" But he pulled me down beside him and said, "Not for you."

"I should hope not," I laughed. "Ah, well... _I'm_ hungry. I shall be ill if I don't eat soon. The past and the supernatural have been known to sicken even the likes of a witch."

"Have you got anything in the house? Perchance I can swallow a few bites for you."

"More than you did this morning, you will! _And_ this afternoon," I added severely. "You can't hide that apple from me."

"I can hide nothing! What will it be, then?"

"Lucky for you, bread and cheese is all that I have requiring no fuss."

"Good," Ichabod sighed, surrendering. "Save the fussing for me."

"I notice that you have grown to like it," I cooed, dragging him to his feet and into the kitchen. Ichabod ate sparingly, but as he had promised, it was enough to satisfy me even more than my own full stomach.

And as _I_ had promised, fuss I did, later that night. With an entreaty that left us both enthralled, I willed the remnant of Levi's belt scar into oblivion.

"You... You would think," Ichabod breathed after quite some time, holding me as feverishly as I held him, "that it was the last night on earth.... _Katrina_."

That faintness, that beautiful vulnerability in his voice, rent my heart as fiercely as it ever had. I was torn, too, because I had not been able to hide my growing desperation, the fact that life seemed suddenly so much more fleeting and precious. I had not alarmed him, at least. Such tenderness overwhelmed me as I gazed down on him... kissed him, left my tears on his eyelashes... _such bittersweet pain!  
_

"I would do anything for you, Ichabod Crane," I whispered plaintively. "Should even forever come to pass, I will love you still."

"Forever is what we have, Katrina! You know that. _Nothing_ is going to happen to you. Sir Rational will not permit it."

I did not let myself cry again. Knowing that his dreams of eternity were ones of contentment, I cradled my husband to sleep even as my mind prepared for war.

_So. His name is Joseph Hawke...  
_

Joseph Hawke...

I reached to that place in the heart of the city, the place that Ichabod's dormant thoughts sketched for me in perfect detail. Though the mansion was quiet with candle-glow, my blood drained thin and left me. I tightened my arms around my husband in shock. My searching hit a brick wall of nothingness. I could not gain access to a single mind within Hawke's walls.

"No!" I cried softly into the pillow.

The place was wound so thickly in Dark Wards that I could no longer bear the assault. My strength ebbed and trembled before the alien ensorcellment. This was evil so thick that not even my stepmother, as clever as she fancied herself, could have summoned it to lock her own dark secrets in her own dark mind. I began to curse my trusting innocence anew. I could have probed her mind at any time, had I but been wise enough to cultivate suspicion.

I hid my face against Ichabod's shoulder in shame, languishing in the candlelit darkness. I had failed to breach Hawke's defense. I almost dared not try Colonel Dorn. For all I knew, he had used that wretched amateur Purnell's devil-bargain to conceal his own thoughts just as cleverly. But one look at Ichabod's countenance, untroubled for once in sleep, gave me new courage. His survival depended upon me, upon my willing sacrifice.

I plunged a dagger into the sleeping heart of New York once more. And in a flash of blinding red, my plea was answered. The Colonel's thoughts floated aimlessly in the blood that I had drawn- the flood of one too many glasses of brandy. I smiled grimly, closing my eyes, daring to relax. Dorn was an open, sodden book.

I despised the words that read themselves in a tide of drunken gibberish.

_So we're set, then, good as set I say as good as set sir yes... Clever man you said he was, but oh I doubt that severely in comparison to you sir... sir.... A good spy? I daresay! Yessir...  
_

I gritted my teeth. Dorn was alone in his study apparently, and yet his thoughts still lingered on some meeting of earlier. A meeting with his superior, I realized, and I did not have to ask who that superior was. I marveled at how pathetic Dorn's lonely celebration was.

_And now we'll just wait till he comes? Wait and see if he accepts? Sir, no man could refuse you if he knows what's good for him....  
_

His thoughts were disjointed yet proud, the closeted ravings of borrowed glory. What grand promises Hawke must have made to him! And in return for what? A few swift one-sided queries settled the score: misallocated funds and a military promotion. "Know your enemy," Ichabod had said. I fully intended to. Morbidly determined, I read on.

_I'm looking forward to another Erickson job, I am... but who to frame who... when you let that thing out again... No matter, though, is it... only a constable turned traitor if he does; no consequence there, so easy to be killed on the job... Of course, sir, the operative is _if_, yes, if he turns you down sir, which I doubt, what, with your brilliant...  
_

I turned a deaf ear on Colonel Dorn's sickening self-indulgence. I held Ichabod all the more securely, tears fighting their way back down my cheeks. I had heard what I needed to hear. And I had not _wanted_ to hear a single word of it. I was sickened by how simple it had been.

_When you let that thing out again-  
_

Hawke was controlling the demon, but of course, Ichabod had probably suspected that, perhaps even knew it. Whether with help from Purnell or none at all, he controlled it with frightening ease. Distressed, my thoughts turned to Isobel. Appalling scenarios began to unravel themselves from the spool of a forbidden spinning wheel in the highest tower of my shadowed half. Suppose that Hawke used the demon to read Isobel's thoughts. Suppose that he found the suspicions that we had formed on the night of the Hessian's visit, the theory of reading the complete tablet that Ichabod and I had blindly forged. Isobel's life might yet be in danger. I reached for her.

_Isobel, please hear me!  
_

I can always hear you, when you allow me to, sister.

Isobel! My relief was boundless. I continued urgently, _Things have gotten dangerous. Mark my words! We know who controls the demon.  
_

I felt Isobel's wave of shock. _Who?_ she demanded.

_His name would mean nothing to you, and it means nothing to me. He is a sordidly powerful man, and his associates are equally sordid. The murder of Erickson was a favor. A mere favor, Isobel! Can you imagine what the crimes that he will commit in his own behalf will be like? I expect he'll kill again. I know he'll kill again. And this time it will be my husband, if he is not careful! I've decided-  
_

Katrina, Isobel said slowly, terrified. _Are you forgetting what you could be getting yourself into?  
_

What do you mean by that? Of course I know what I'm getting myself into! They'll kill me before they even lay their hands on Ichabod, I'll see to-

I don't mean that. Think about what Jürgen warned us of. We have no guarantee that they'll find out about what you can do, but, all the same... Caution is highly preferable to recklessness. They don't know anything about you, really, whoever they are- God, I don't even know who they_ are! Katrina, fall silent now, hide yourself. I will be all right. I will send you word tomorrow... for I, too, have made a decision. We were wiser in our pen and paper correspondence than we knew!  
_

Then revert to it we shall, I thought numbly, realizing foolishly that my plan to monitor those brutes all along had been a foolhardy one. Isobel was wise to advise me against taking such a risk. I felt Ichabod slip away from me once more into peril. I _had _to find another way. _Isobel, good night and God keep you.  
_

If God dares show his face on such a night, Isobel remarked fearfully.

_Isobel?  
_

Please go! I am restless tonight because of another_ who is restless. Distant but abroad. I can feel it. I have never felt it from within these walls before.  
_

Feel-

Go!

She was promptly gone, sealed off as tightly as before. It had occurred to me that perhaps she was always a nocturnal creature, seldom sleeping, but the fact that she felt _another's _restlessness sent a chill down my spine. Somewhere in the sleeping city, the demon was abroad.

That night, I followed Isobel's example. For try as I might, I could not sleep. Ichabod was as safely in my arms as ever, and yet he was not. Sick with dread, I waited for morning to come. I dreamed candles and slept the rise and fall of Ichabod's breath, but my eyes did not close.

"Did you sleep well?" I whispered when Ichabod finally woke with the early dawn.

"Rather!" he murmured, yawning. "You have done a marvelous job of warding off nightmares, my love."

I smiled weakly, hollow with exhaustion. "I am glad," I said softly, accepting his kiss as if indeed it would be one of our last. Ichabod sat up, studying at me in the pale, burned-out light. He took my face gently in his hands.

"Katrina, if I'm not mistaken, your eyes are red, ringed, and everything in between. Did _you_ sleep well?"

"No," I murmured, heartsick, leaning helplessly against his chest.

"Did you...? Please, no, not after-"

"Yes. I waited until you were asleep. I didn't want to tell you. I couldn't wake you, not at the witching hour, to tell you what I found!"

"I would rather know at the witching hour than know too late," he said gently, stroking my hair. "Did you reach Hawke?"

"No. I couldn't. He's set Dark Wards around himself so thick that I swear not even the Fates could shear through it. It's terrifying, Ichabod, and let me tell you, it's only half of the terror! I reached Dorn. He was drunk, frighteningly so, and rattling off the most appalling thoughts... They... They will take your life if you are not careful! That's all I could gather- all the more that I could bear to listen to! I doubt that Dorn knows any more than we know. I reached Isobel, worried out of my wits for her almost as much as for you... I can't imagine what more they might to do her, should they realize that the demon's courting her on its own behalf... but she made me realize how unwittingly wise I had been to cut off my inquiry after I'd heard what I didn't want to hear, and..."

I panted helplessly, began to sob. It was all too much. Far, far too much. I doubted that I could save any of us. I doubted that anyone could. Ichabod's arms tightened around me; once more he played the unaccustomed role of comforter.

"Katrina, you must tell me at once what you have done to yourself. At once! There is so much more behind this. I know you too well," he pleaded.

Could I admit it, even in the presence of his unfaltering love? Could I tell him that I wanted to fling myself into the fire for his sake? And that, possibly, in the attempt, my sorcery could unwittingly betray us all?

"Let me die for you!" I cried, unhinged from what I had vowed to silence. "You don't deserve to be caught in the middle of things like this! You never did! I cannot even use my gifts to help you now without constant fear that the demon could be under orders to trace my every telepathic move!"

Ichabod comforted me bravely even though I had chiseled away what foundation he had begun to build for himself. His eyes were now as wasted as mine as he drew my chin up to his level, but they were hardened with the resolve that I had seen in him yesterday. A resolve such as he had never had before. In that, I found reason for hope.

"You know that I never wished strongly for you to pry in their affairs, but that was your prerogative, my love. Your courage is what keeps me here. Do not consider redundant information useless. Refuse to let it be an accessory to our defeat. I certainly do! If anything, I know that your heart is not one given to surrender. Do not start now! There is a way around this barrier just as there is a way around every other, however obscure. Take it from one with experience," Ichabod said firmly. In his faint smile, too, I found reason for hope.

"Yes," I said, my mind beginning to reassemble itself, ashamed of its own cowardice and consternation. Though mortality was a threat, perhaps no one had to die. _Perhaps_. The danger was now so great that neither of us knew exactly what light could possibly remain on the other side. _Light, pale as dawn, shimmering on even paler hair...  
_

"One deduction that I _can_ make," I said, eyes narrowing, "is that proud men believe they will get away with their crimes, and so they have no need to lie to those who they assume they will be able to silence or kill. That's how they see us. This means that Hawke has the tablet. Both halves, I don't doubt. Is Hawke foolish enough to confide the location of his valuables in Dorn?"

"I doubt it," Ichabod said gravely.

"Is there anyone with whom he would share such confidences? Anyone at all? Someone dear to him, someone he loves?" I could not believe my own ears. I could not believe what I was saying. Such was Ichabod's faith in me, capable of dragging me back to myself when I no doubt would have foundered.

"His fiancée," Ichabod mused cautiously. "He was careless about her in conversation, but I do not know how much value he truly places on his Empress. Perhaps that is his weak spot. Or perhaps it is not. He must have an Achilles heel concealed so cleverly that not even Zeus himself would know."

"That is my only hope, though," I said with fresh desperation. "Find out what you can about her, her location, her name, everything-"

"I know where she lives."

"Good. I would still prefer to know her name. I also need a morning to convince Isobel that mind reading, if used sparingly and with caution, may still be an option. God, it won't be easy! I believe she took Jürgen's warning more to heart than I did. She already commented that she's decided on something, though, and I know what that something is. She'll agree to contact the demon."

"When was anything ever simple for us?" Ichabod asked wryly.

"Only in the very last moments of battle, I fear," I said with resignation. I slipped my arms around my husband's neck, just looking at him for the longest time. "You saved me from myself, Sir Rational. From a capacity for surrender that this fairy sprite did not know she had."

"You have saved me from too many things to name. I don't expect you to feel so obligated again," he chided somberly but affectionately.

"You know that's impossible," I whispered fiercely, choking up.

"Then I suppose we shall meet our end together one of these days, each refusing to abandon the other."

"I would not want it any other way, Ichabod."

"Nor would I," he said with conviction, kissing my forehead. "Nor would I!"

Ichabod had agreed to find out what he could about Hawke's bride-to-be. I had agreed to contact Isobel as soon as I could. David did not wake until I had seen Ichabod off to his self-imposed investigation of Senator Remington with a harrowingly sweet goodbye. Of all days, Saturday was not one on which he was obligated to work. But I had come to expect nothing less of his determination. Investigations did not halt simply because it was his day off.

The boy was alert once more, and his arm was no longer swollen. Ichabod had caught the venom with perfect timing. David and I ate together as if it were any other morning. To him, it was just that.

"Why don't we have a picnic?" David suggested as he helped me clear the table. "A picnic lunch. Can Colin come?"

My heart sank into my stomach. "David, I'm afraid a picnic will not be possible today. Isobel and I have things to discuss."

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" he demanded abruptly.

"What do you mean?"

"This whole murder business. I'm not stupid. You're in over your heads again."

"And last time, you were in over yours, if you remember correctly."

"Yes! So let me be again!" David pleaded.

"I cannot begin to tell you what we are involved in, David. Too many of us are in grave danger already. I will not add you to the list."

He glared at me quietly for a while. "I'm not useless," he said testily.

"No, you never were! And the best way for you to remain useful is to stay alive. David, I've come to care for you far too much to endanger you again. Speak of it no more."

"Yes, Katrina," he said apologetically. "It's just that... well, I'd rather it be me than you or Ichabod!"

I was crying in his embrace in no time at all. I could scarcely believe it. A house full of willing victims!

"Set your mind on survival," I told him fiercely, drying my tears, "and stay that way!"

I sent David off to Raleigh Avenue with a loaf of bread and a jar of blackberry jam for Colin's mother, as well as with a warning to resist the lure of harmless-looking arachnids. Collapsing at the kitchen table with pen and ink in hand, I wrote:

 

 

>   
>  _Miss Keller ~_
> 
> _I must be brief. Come at once, and bring your brother. Much to discuss and much to be done. Time and faith have never been more of the essence. Look to it that you come in safety!_
> 
> _K.V.T._

So deep had my paranoia taken root that I dared not go into specific detail or use names that would be recognizable to foes on the prowl. My more sensible half reminded me that Isobel's name would be more cause for alert than my own, but I signed with the initials of my maiden name regardless. I was grateful that my father's youngest sister, Samantha Van Coort (by marriage to some cousin of old Van Ripper's), had engraved that hairpin solely with my married name. I was petrified when I read that detail from Ichabod. I had nearly willed myself to forget about the wind in the marketplace tearing it from my possession. In that moment, flight had been more important than crying over spilt sterling.

The only courier in sight that morning was one that I did not recognize, and I entrusted the note to him with barely concealed edginess. I wandered the house in a state of high agitation for an hour and a half, wondering if my message had even reached the twins. A knock on the front door at a quarter until noon ensured me that they had. Annoyed that my hands were occupied by a tea tray, I sprung the lock on the front door from halfway across the living room.

"Come in. It's open," I called.

Isobel was quick to cross the threshold and attempt to relieve me of the tray, but I politely refused, showering her with greetings as I lowered the tray onto the tea table. There was an unusual depth and darkness about her eyes, I noticed, and her hair was loose about her shoulders rather than in her trademark plaits. I wondered what young man could resist such haunting loveliness. Christopher, as if he had read my well-hidden thoughts, remained aloof as he closed the door behind them.

Isobel's hands quickly claimed mine. "He does not want me to do this," she whispered steadily in my ear. I was once more taken aback by her calm, her exquisite mastery of that inherent nervousness she and Ichabod shared.

"_Do_... You mean that- here? Now?"

"I told you that I have made up my mind. Of course here," she replied.

"At least have a seat first and take some of this ginger tea and sliced fruit off my hands," I invited the twins cordially, looking up to include Christopher in the exchange. He nodded as if very tired and took a seat beside his sister on the sofa. I pulled up the rocking chair. True to Isobel's word, Christopher ate without hesitation while she nibbled rather fretfully, which drew concerned looks from her brother. I couldn't touch anything except for my tea. Isobel and I tried casual conversation, but it was difficult given Christopher's wary silence.

"Where is Ichabod today? Doesn't he have Saturdays off?" Isobel asked thoughtfully.

"Not when he's embroiled in a case that involves every waking moment," I sighed. "He's investigating another name that has come up. A Senator Remington."

"He has my vote," Christopher said firmly, breaking his own silence at last. A shadow crossed the young man's face. "Why is your husband investigating him?"

"He's a political opponent of the principal suspect in this whole farce."

"Who happens to be?"

"I had better start at the beginning," I sighed. "You two have the right to know what Ichabod has discovered, as deeply involved as you are. Isobel, the demon's controller is a man by the name of Joseph Hawke. Formerly a Major but now a Colonel by virtue of some highly unvirtuous activities that he conducts through his associates. Do you remember the misallocated funds? They're being funneled to Hawke through at least two cohorts. Colonel Dorn and Senator Trevayne, as I understand it."

"Trevayne!" Christopher sneered, on the verge of vitriolic mirth. "He couldn't tell the difference between Senate and Parliament if you slapped the Constitution in front of him!"

I was mildly amused. "Perhaps if you shared your political views with my husband he would be far better disposed towards you," I remarked lightly.

"I suppose that the common interests would end there," Christopher grumbled.

Isobel shoved her elbow daintily into his side.

"Pardon me," he sulked.

"Never mind. We're not so much concerned with politics as with crime," I said hastily, sorry that I had let my banter-prone side give in. "The bottom line is the lowest it can get, for certain. Hawke enslaved the demon with the help of an amateur magician named Simon Purnell, who has some... appalling hobbies," I faltered. Isobel dipped quickly into my thoughts and emerged a shade paler. Christopher, curious, in turn sampled her discovery and looked as if he wanted to smash his teacup on the floor.

"Great. So my sister could be next to you on this quack's list, for all I know!"

"We don't know enough!" I cried. "We can only guess from what Ichabod has thus far discovered, and believe me, Christopher, it's a world more than we would have known without him! What you have to worry about is your tablet. Hawke has now has it in addition to the missing piece that the two of you never knew existed."

"Hawke is the thief?" Christopher gasped.

"Through the demon, yes, you genius," Isobel snapped with a touch of exasperation.

"I'll wring his neck," Christopher seethed.

"The tablet means a lot to you," I observed.

"A gift from a father gone before his time? Certainly," Christopher said with bitter grief.

I looked at Isobel for a long moment, imploring. I had been patient in waiting for my own secrets' retribution. She bowed her head.

"All that I said once," Isobel began, "is that when Christopher and I were sixteen, our parents never came back. And after all that you've told me, Katrina, I never offered to tell you from _what_."

"Isobel," Christopher grated.

"No. She'll know. Our parents' fate is not even half as terrible or extraordinary as that of her own, and still I could not tell her. It was foolish of me, Christopher."

"No it wasn't," I was quick to reassure her, guilt-ridden. "Death is horrible no matter how it comes. You don't have to say-"

"I do. We were always such a delicate topic with them, with their friends. What children like us wouldn't be? You can't just reply to the kind old housewife who asks after your family in church, 'Why, delightful! My five year olds regularly chatter about the guests who walk in through the walls and tell them stories about who lived in this house fifty years ago.' They were so protective of us, Ma and Father were. With what good reason, I need not go into any further. Finally, after sixteen years of barely seeing us and wondering what on earth would necessitate hiding one's children, the good folk of Ebenstown- where they settled after their return from India and had us soon after- grew a little too curious for their own good and for ours, and _not_ in a pleasant way. They considered moving west and found a homestead for sale in Ohio. I don't know why Christopher and I begged to stay home that week. We'd come to love our closeted world, in a way, with what few friends we had... so we talked our parents into leaving us behind. And three weeks later, we found out that their carriage toppled in some ice floes. To make matters worse... a week after they left..."

Drowned. Their parents had drowned. "Yes?" I whispered quietly.

"I didn't understand why someone whispered sadly in my ear, 'They'll cross rivers no more.' I told Christopher in the morning, asked him if he'd heard it, but he hadn't. I dismissed it as I generally dismiss any uncooperative spirit's one-time appearances. The less persistent they are, the less they need assistance, generally. I only wish that... that once... I had listened to one of those passers-by for a change."

Identical tears shed in the twins' eyes, but they did not weep. I took Isobel's hand across the tea table. So their childhood had not necessarily been an entirely unhappy one after all. And who knew better than I the pain of losing happiness and stability? Isobel's reluctance to speak was derived from her undeserved guilt.

"It wasn't your fault. You had no way of knowing," I comforted them.

Isobel placed her teacup on the table. "We _had_ a way, but in our trusting ignorance, we let it pass. It's an old wound, Katrina. Something that the three... four, five of us share. We have made our peace, being in a somewhat easier position than most to do so. But mocking ourselves was the hardest part... to use the gift whereby we might have known to see their souls safely home."

"Don't think of it as such!"

"Try as I might," Isobel sighed with a tearful smile, "Try as I might... Oh, come, I'll help you clear it away. We have work to do."

As the two of us carried the dishes into the kitchen, I was certain that those of the greatest fragility were also those of the greatest courage. What an artful twist of creation, these loved ones of mine! Isobel still did not cry audibly as I embraced her. She smiled again, her eyes more improbably shadowed.

"Let's get this over with," she laughed softly. "My brother's going to be in a terrible state for the rest of the night."

"You didn't have to say anything."

"I did, sister. The things that you shared with me deserved a telling done twice over! You had the right to know, as you deemed it my right to be aware of you."

Christopher waited idly for us to return, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief drawn from his pocket. "You mean to do it right here, Isa? No props whatsoever... are you sure-"

"Never more so," she replied firmly.

"I'll need a sturdier chair than this one," I said, sliding the rocker back into its place by the door and fetching an alternate from the kitchen.

"Katrina, Christopher was going to-"

"No. I offer my hands again," I said with determination.

Christopher had no problem with that. Isobel seemed troubled by it, however.

"You don't have to do that."

"Yes, I do," I said. And Isobel seemed glad after all.

We sat across from each other, the tea table between us. Christopher kept his place beside Isobel, unmoving. Isobel's eyes never departed from mine as she took my hands. She seemed afraid now that the task was at hand. Little did she know, she would not be alone. I caught the flash of marble at her bodice. I was ready.

"This is something that I have never done," Isobel said, at a loss for any other words. Her eyes flinched shut. She went promptly rigid. My heart ached already, with guilt and empathy. I had made my decision, however. I, too, closed my eyes. And when her breathing went shallow, I carefully transferred the marble hand from her pale throat to mine. It touched the eye and burned.

The mist had come, but with it this time, voices. I was thrown into a realm of half-light and sepulchral chill, robbed of my breath as efficiently as Isobel. Her hands on mine gave no sign of awareness of the theft I had committed. This was not the place in which she had petitioned with Rishkha.

_I know you are here, _Isobel said sorrowfully, seeking. I did not know whether she meant me or the demon. I felt as if I'd been in the snow for hours on end without my muff and cloak. The cold penetrated bone deep; the moving shadows were gray and hazy and scowled at us even though we weren't truly visible. I would have cried out if I had a voice. But I did not.

_I know you are here. I know that you need me. How am I to know if I can help you if you will not tell me? How is it that you stalk me of your own free will even while you are bound? Why don't you answer while I am willing?  
_

Isobel's terrified challenge filled me. She was no more accustomed to this realm than I. I did not regret my decision to follow her directly, but I vaguely regretted asking her to plead with a thing that perhaps-

_Cannot answer a command save one given by its controller! Oh, Isobel...  
_

_KATRINA! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?_

I shook with her violent reprimand. I would have been tossed from my chair were it not for the penetrating cold. _You will not suffer this alone, _I shot back.

_Suffer you shall. The worst is yet to come, if it-  
_

It came. The cold turned to fire in our veins. Our hands were torn apart as we fell, no sound issuing from our lips even as we wailed. My eyes were gouged, blinded by a stream of consciousness that attacked from all sides. I saw things that I could not begin to make sense of, so great was the agony: jungle heat, trees with leaves as tall as a man, a dark-skinned phantom bowing in a forest shrine as he chiseled and sweated and pleaded with some unseen force in a language that Isobel alone understood. A miracle, then... her voiceless speech resounded in the torturous cloud, overcame it.

_I am sorry for this, that you were bound. I am sorry that you were not left to your peace, there on that foreign shore. Men are fools and take with them what they will. Yes, I say this of my father, innocent as he was. But now you are here, enlisted once more- or perhaps enlisted for the first time, for all that I know. That is why I call you. I must know... why you have followed me!  
_

The next succession of images was charged with ferocious anger. My scathed eyes saw a gentleman's study. The gentleman himself stood before the hearth, bending to right a fallen poker. Satisfied with his tidying, he smiled, about to turn away when-

When_-  
_

He was torn open from the front, a violent strangling upheaval of blood as if snagged on an unseen hook. I could not close my eyes against this. I watched and choked and sobbed and still no sound issued from my lips. I did not know where Isobel was. _I did not know where either of us were! _The terrible spectacle faded, leaving the cold-heat of the atmosphere a blackish red.

Isobel quavered as if lost to herself for good, _You did not wish to do this to Gabriel Erickson?  
_

Frozen, black, bloody silence. _No_, it seemed to say, _but do these things, I must.  
_

Tell me how he enslaved you. Tell me what I must do to free you.

More images: money changing hands in a nondescript antiquities shop, a man who I knew must be Hawke accepting a strangely shaped package wrapped in black velvet that sagged in his grasp like a brick. Purnell by his side, his weak amphibious eyes aglow, his image-thoughts accessible to be: _It is a rare find, Colonel. Rare indeed. I will tell you what can be done. For a price, for a price...  
_

You were bought. A terrible thing, yes. But what can I do, when I have neither the fragment Hawke purchased or the half that was stolen from me? I must have it all to have it translated. And only then can I speak- if it be your freedom, these words-

Isobel never had the chance to finish. A wave of rage spun us, flung us back together roughly. No image-answer, this! I felt my hands clamped onto Isobel's by fingers of terrible cold. I shuddered, but my body was not free to move. The icicle fingers plunged _through the back of my hands. _My palms crawled as if flayed by tiny forked tongues. My body could no longer stand the staid implosion of its cries and shudders by the ever-present flame-licked cold. I passed out.

"Christopher, is she breathing? Katrina, Katrina, answer me!" I heard Isobel sob, her voice sliding to my ears as if forced through a tube.

"Now she is!" Christopher cried. His arms about my shoulders came slowly to my awareness. He was holding me upright in the chair. In reality, my body had never left it.

"You fool," I heard Isobel gasp, all at once reprimanding and hysterically grateful. "You terrible fool."

I lifted my head from the table with a jerk, swaying in the brace of Christopher's arms. My cheeks were plastered with hot tears and my throat felt as if I'd been yelling for hours. I stared at Isobel across from me. Her face was gray, as I inferred quickly enough that my own must be, and her eyes were raw but curiously lighter, as if the shadows they had borne upon her arrival were lifted. I stared down at her hands, trembling palms up on the table. They were covered with blood.

"_Oh- God- I- again-!"  
_

Isobel rushed around the table to my side, forgetting her sullied hands and wrapping her arms around me in league with her brother's.

"Sh, no, Katrina," she soothed tremulously. "The... the blood... oh, Lord, but how awful to put it this way! It's-"

My own hands lay palms down on the table. I lifted them, sobbed when they peeled away with a seeping tear.

"Not yours," I said in a faint, hollow whisper.

My hands were scored with lines, dots, squiggles, and dashes that could have been carved by the head of a pin. How such light, shallow cuts showed with such unnatural clarity...

"It's writing, Katrina," Isobel said helplessly.

I did not have to ask what kind. I also did not have to ask whether or not it was contained in the Magellans' half of the tablet. My entire body ached and my hands burned.

"Isobel, there's... a handkerchief on my dresser upstairs," I managed to say before my voice gave out. She brought it quickly, stumbling almost as if she had forgotten how to walk.

Reading my thoughts without a second one of her own, she turned the table in front of me and spread the handkerchief on a clean portion of it. I pressed my bleeding palms against it, hoping against hope that the pressure I exerted was not too much or too little. Taking another unspoken cue, Isobel peeled the handkerchief away.

"My God," Christopher breathed.

Isobel flipped it to the reverse side. The blood had penetrated seamlessly, flawlessly.

"The demon couldn't use any other writing to communicate... it knows no other.... Here we have the answer, and we cannot read it," Isobel said quietly, defeated.

_I think this is what the missing half says,_ I ventured.

_So do I, Katrina. Without our half, still, it's useless.  
_

Nothing is entirely useless, a smile curiously finding its way to my lips. _We know that Ichabod's conjecture is correct. And we now have something to bargain with. Their secret weapon replicated in the blood of a witch. Think of it, Isobel-  
_

The front door opened. That was how Ichabod found us, a shaken tableau about his tea table. Isobel and I had been in the trance for over three hours. Strange, how so long a time seemed so short....

Perhaps the demon was merciful in its own perverse way after all.

 

*

 

I swiftly rushed to Katrina, elbowing Christopher aside. Her face was ashen, her eyes even redder than they had been this morning and the circles under them darker, her cheeks streaked with tears. I took her by the shoulders. "Katrina! Good God...what happened?"

"I'm all right, Ichabod." She was trying to look calm for my sake. Isobel, who also looked rather pale, kept a comforting arm around her.

"Nonsense. Tell me what you've been doing to yourself today. At once."

"We just had a séance for the demon," she explained.

"And you insisted upon being brave and..." I reached for her hand to clasp it comfortingly. She quickly moved it away, palm downward, but not before a tiny smear of blood got onto my own hand. I seized both of her hands and turned their palms upward, in spite of her attempts to resist my hold.

My breath caught in my chest, and I nearly swooned at what I saw. Her lovely palms were covered in tiny scratches, blood seeping from them slowly.

A dozen nightmare images rushed through my head. Slashed palms, lacerated palms, bloody palms...

"Ichabod." My wife's voice was very firm, cutting through the terrors that coursed through my fevered mind. "I need some salve for this. There is some in the maplewood chest in our room. It's in a small green jar in the upper right-hand corner."

"I'll get it," Isobel offered.

"No," I said, my voice strained. "You stay here with Katrina. I shall get it." My eyes met those of my beloved gratefully. She had been able to bring me back from near-unconsciousness by giving me a purpose of the moment. Numbly I walked up the stairs to our bedroom.

I knelt beside the bed and checked cautiously first for spiders before reaching until my hands met solid air. I pulled the box out. It did not appear at my touch as it had for her. I had to find the clasp by touch, and then gingerly ran my hands over the invisible contents until I felt something like a jar. When I lifted it out of the box, it became visible, and it was green as she had said. I closed the box and pushed it back into place.

As I rose, I found myself reflecting on what I would have thought a year ago had I seen myself. Here I was searching an invisible box for a salve for the wounds a demon had inflicted on the witch I had married. I would have found it amazing enough that I would be married. I remembered something Katrina once said, back in Sleepy Hollow: "Are you so certain of everything?" Not anymore.

When I returned to the sitting room, I lifted Katrina and carried her to the sofa and made her recline. "I'm all right, Ichabod," she insisted shakily.

"Nonsense. If _I_ came in looking the way you do now, you would put me to bed so fast it would make my head spin. And as soon as we've shared what we've learned today, that is exactly where you're going." I opened the jar and tried to put some of the salve on her hands, but my own were trembling too much at the sight of the blood on her palms. Isobel quietly took the jar from me and began treating my wife's hands for me.

I moved aside to give Isobel room and drew a breath, trying to compose myself. "Can I get you anything else, my love? Something to drink?" She shook her head. "What happened?" I demanded.

"These scratches form letters," Katrina explained. "Sanskrit letters. The ones from the missing half of the tablet."

"And the demon made them?" I had been fighting light-headedness since the instant I saw her hands, but with something to concentrate on, I became calm and intent once more. At her nod, I pressed my lips together in satisfaction. "Then I was right. The reading of the tablet _is_ the way to free the demon. That _is_ what it wants. And that is what we must do before we can bring these villains to justice."

I noticed that the twins were looking at me in faint surprise. I had seen that look before, from people who had seen me falter and were now seeing my true self. I smiled briefly and looked back at my wife. "Your hands...do they hurt?" I asked gently.

"Not much," Katrina evaded, but Christopher spoke up.

"She screamed and fainted when it happened," he informed me.

Isobel shot her brother a warning look. "I don't think it will scar, Constable Crane," she said softly as she replaced the lid on the jar of salve. "These scratches are not very deep."

I clasped my wife's shoulder since I could not hold her injured hands. "It must have been fairly dreadful to make _you_ faint," I said sympathetically. Behind me, Christopher gave a loud exhalation that just barely missed being a snort. I was annoyed, but ignored him. Katrina leaned over and kissed my cheek reassuringly. I reddened. It always embarrasses me when she does that in front of others, though I cannot honestly say I wish she would stop.

But now to putting that pup in his place. I straightened and turned. "By the way, Mr. Magellan," I said coolly, "I have found your Sanskrit tablet." This had the effect I desired; everyone's eyes widened, and Christopher looked rather abashed. "Both pieces of it."

"I knew you would find it," Katrina said warmly, still lying back wanly.

"Where is it?" he demanded.

"In the Museum of Arts and Antiquities."

"How the..." He stopped himself, remembering there were ladies present. "How did it get _there_?"

"Her Grace, Mireille d'Aubrecy-sur-Mer, donated it." I looked at Katrina. "It is fortunate you wished for me to learn the name of Hawke's fiancée, because she was the key to locating it. As soon as I heard her name, I remembered something I read a few days ago in the _Banner_."

"You read the _Banner_?" Christopher sneered.

"Only when the murderers I am investigating are bribing its editor to publish propaganda," I answered frostily. That quieted him. For the moment, at least.

"There was an item in the _Banner_ a few days ago which mentioned the generous donation of several valuable artifacts and works of art made to the Museum by an expatriate duchess," I continued. "This duchess, I have learned, has been reduced to selling her bric-a-brac to pawnbrokers, so how is she making generous donations to museums and charitable societies? But she is engaged to Colonel Joseph Hawke, who is behind all of these crimes...the Erickson murder, the theft of your tablet, and many more things to come, if he has his way. I believe that he is making these donations in her name, in order to establish his wife as the _grande dame_ he needs for his aims."

"This propaganda the _Banner_ is publishing...is it about Senator Remington?" Christopher asked tensely.

"Yes, among other things."

"What did you learn about Remington?" he wanted to know. I studied his face, gauging the motive behind his question. It seemed that, whatever his shortcomings, the lad at least had sense enough to respect Remington.

"I discovered considerable evidence that Senator Remington has been embezzling large amounts of government money."

Christopher's face was both incredulous and crestfallen. "I don't believe it!"

"Nor do I," I informed him. Stopped, he stared at me. "I am certain that Colonel Hawke, Colonel Dorn and whoever else they have enmeshed in their conspiracy are simply trying to frame Remington for their own crimes, discrediting one of the most charismatic champions of democracy in the process." I hesitated, wondering what Christopher's reaction would be if he knew what else I had learned about Senator Remington.

"_Why_ do they want to discredit Remington?" he demanded.

I regarded the young man levelly. "Colonel Hawke fancies himself a sort of New World Napoleon."

"_What?_ This is a democracy!"

"He intends to change that."

"Americans won't stand for that!"

"I quite agree," I told him. "But in the meantime, he could spill a lot of blood in the attempt."

"Blood well spilt, if it keeps this country free!"

For the next ten minutes Christopher and I had a political discussion that was none the less heated because we agreed completely. When I chanced to glance at the ladies sitting on the other side of the room, both of them looked decidedly amused, as if their little boys were finally playing nicely. I grimaced at Katrina and came back to the matter at hand.

"But Joseph Hawke made the mistake of bringing his plans to my attention," I declared. "And the even greater one of threatening Lady Crane. Like many men who are now behind bars, he underestimated me. Fate has chosen me to stop America from backsliding into the medieval institution of monarchy."

Christopher looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I regarded him levelly; he, too, had underestimated me. A gallingly frequent mistake. Admiration tinged with amusement was written on the face of my beloved. I have never understood why she so often looks amused at the most serious moments. Isobel gave me a searching look and then gazed sadly at Katrina.

I continued briskly. "One of the items Hawke donated to the museum in his fiancée's name was your Sanskrit tablet, along with its missing half."

"So arrest him and get it back!"

"We must proceed with caution, Mr. Magellan. We have to free the demon before alerting these villains that I am not playing their game."

Christopher fumed. He started to object, but his sister stopped him. "He is right, Christopher. Now that we know where it is, we can be patient for a few days." She looked to me. "What do you plan to do, Constable Crane?"

"Our first step is to have the tablet translated," I said. "I have located another Sanskrit scholar. Tomorrow Mrs. Crane and I will go to see him. Right before we arrive, Mrs. Crane will conjure the tablet from the Museum. It is closed on Sunday, so no one will notice. We will have him copy the writing to translate, and then Mrs. Crane will conjure it back. Once the inscription is translated and Miss Magellan reads it and frees the demon, then I can arrest Hawke, Dorn and their friends on embezzlement charges. I will make certain that the tablet is then returned to its rightful owners," I finished inclining my head toward them.

"What about that mountebank Purnell?" Christopher demanded.

I felt my slight smile fading. "I will take care of him as well," I said in a deathly quiet voice. I hate to think what my face must have looked like, because all of them grew quiet as they gazed at me.

"I suppose..." Christopher agreed grudgingly.

Isobel said solemnly, "_Thank you_, Constable Crane."

"My pleasure, Miss Magellan. And now, Mrs. Crane," I turned a face of mock sternness on Katrina, "_you_ need some rest."

The Magellans took their leave, Isobel embracing Katrina warmly before going. Katrina was too exhausted to object when I carried her upstairs.

"First you stay up all night, and now this. You must take better care of yourself," I ordered. "We cannot afford for you to make yourself ill now."

"You are right, Ichabod," she murmured into my chest, where she was resting her head. As I set her on the bed, she suddenly looked up at me. "Ichabod...downstairs, on the table, there is a handkerchief with bloodstains from my hands. You must put it in the maplewood box, to keep it safe."

"Safe?" I frowned at her. Had she pushed herself to the point of delirium?

"The writing on the missing half of the tablet that has the power to free the demon, written in the blood of a witch," she murmured. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

"I'll get it," I assured her unhappily. Leaving her to change into a nightdress, I fetched the gruesome artifact, handling it gingerly. Heaven knew what such an artifact was capable of doing. When I returned to our room, she was lying wanly in bed. I put the handkerchief in the invisible box and then pulled up a chair to sit beside the bed.

"I think I am too anxious to sleep, weary as I am," she muttered.

"If you aren't asleep soon, I will get you some laudanum." I took her hand, very carefully. "There is nothing for you to be anxious about, my love. This will all be cleared up in a matter of days. Tomorrow we shall arrange for the tablet to be translated. As soon as we have the translation, Miss Magellan can read it and these villains will have lost their most powerful weapon. I have ample evidence to arrest Hawke and Dorn on quite mundane charges. And to keep Senator Remington's name clear." I frowned involuntarily.

"What is it, Ichabod? I thought there was something you were not telling us about Senator Remington."

I shook my head wearily. "I am going to have to get myself some of those Dark Wards."

She smiled. "I was not reading your thoughts, my love. Garden variety women's intuition was quite adequate for that."

"Can the Magellans read thoughts as well?"

"We can speak to each other with our minds, but they cannot read minds as I can. Your thoughts are safe from them, my love."

"Good. I would hate to see Christopher's reaction if he learned the other things I learned about Remington. Because these are true."

"Well?"

I hesitated. "Senator Remington is a good man," I said at last. "But he is...addicted to an unnatural vice."

Her eyes widened. "Like that Simon Purnell?"

"_No._ From what I learned, Remington has...like-minded companions, shall we say. Willing participants in these vices. Simon Purnell has no such compunctions." At the mention of the would-be wizard's name, cold rage unseated my nausea. Katrina had, indirectly, destroyed yet another certainty forever. I would never have thought myself capable of the retribution to which I had already doomed Simon Purnell.

"It is a good thing you did not tell Christopher, then," she said, closing her eyes. "I don't think I have ever heard him speak well of anyone else."

I shrugged. "At his age, no one was good enough to satisfy me either."

She opened her eyes, dimpling. "And who reaches your Olympian standards now, Sir Rational?"

I smiled at her, remembering how much that pet name had irritated me the first few times she had used it. I had grown very fond of it in time. "Now the sum of worthy souls, in my estimate, has soared to a grand total of one. Exactly one fairy sprite."

Shaking her head and smiling, she closed her eyes again. I sat holding her hand until her breathing grew even and she slept. I watched her face grow peaceful and untroubled, even more angelic in sleep than in wakefulness. Silently, I thanked God for the thousandth time since our wedding.

I regretted having allowed her to read the encounter with Hawke from my thoughts. She had worked herself into a terrible state over the threat to me. I resolved that in the future I would tell her things myself so that I could shield her.

I had almost forgotten that Hawke had threatened me with death. To me, that had been irrelevant. What had been important was the accompanying hint that it was he who controlled the demon, because someone who could do that might be able to carry out his threat against my wife, despite her powers. It had not even occurred to me, though perhaps it should have, that she would think the threat to _me _was the important matter! And who knew what rash act she might perform now, if she thought it would help me. Once again, I am too fortunate.

And the fact was that _nothing_ was going to happen to her. I might not know exactly how to defend her from this threat, but whatever was required, I would do it. I had not let the Headless Horseman harm her, and I would not let these vile men do so either. I kissed her lacerated palm gently before releasing her hand and leaving her to sleep. I had work to do to ensure her safety...and that of my country, I added as an afterthought.

As I was getting my ledger from the sitting room, David came in. When he saw me, he said, "I finished that chemistry book, sir."

"Ah, good. Did you have any questions?"

"A few."

"Go get the book and come up to the laboratory and I'll answer them for you. Keep quiet, though; Katrina is taking a nap."

A few moments later we were both seated on the battered, sturdy wooden chairs of my laboratory, deep in discussion of chemical reactions. I was quite pleased with how well his mind was developing. I would not have thought I would so thoroughly enjoy training a young mind.

When his questions were satisfied, he hesitated. "Thank you for treating my spider bite," he said, a bit shyly.

"I was happy to do so."

He pressed his lips together before saying, "Sir, I know that you're in trouble. With the investigation, I mean. I want to help." He held my gaze tensely.

It took me a moment to find words. "Thank you, David. Just knowing that helps more than you know."

"You avenged my father! And you took me in as well. How can I ever repay that?"

I looked at him, struggling to find words or a gesture to tell him how much this meant to me. I was exasperated with myself. The only time that he and I are truly at ease with each other is when we are speaking of abstract matters, of science and deduction and police work. Anything more personal and we are both tongue-tied. Will I be so awkward with my own son, if fate ever blesses me so?

I clasped his shoulder hesitantly. "There is no question of repayment, David," I said softly. "I am very grateful I could help."

"And I want to help you now! I'm worried about you!"

I sighed. I could not even convince a ten-year-old boy that I could look after myself, even one who had seen me at my best as well as my worst, even one whose respect for my abilities was patent. No wonder my wife insisted upon coddling me. "Let me do the worrying," I said wearily.

He looked both pleased and impatient. "I want something to _do_!" For a second he restrained himself, and then added, "I let you down before, about keeping Katrina out of McRaker's Alley. I won't fail you again!"

"You did not fail me!" I said emphatically. "You know perfectly well that we are both helpless when she has made her mind up. Had I known she was so set on going there, I would never have dragged you into it, and I am sorry that I did."

"Tell me what's going on. How can I help if I don't know?"

"You are a brave young man, David." I hesitated. I could hardly bring a child into this sordid mess, and yet, if he were kept completely ignorant, that too could endanger him. I considered my words carefully. "The men behind Gabriel Erickson's murder have many other unsavory plans," I said at last, "and they are trying to induce me to help them."

He was incredulous. "They think they can make _you_ do something wrong? They must be stupid!"

I acknowledged this with a nod. "Not stupid so much as overconfident. And they do have some compelling reasons to offer. If they think I am not cooperating with them, then...well, they have threatened Katrina."

His eyes widened. "We can't let anything happen to her!" he said fiercely. His loyalty warmed me.

"We won't. And so, once again, what I need you to do is simply keep your eyes open. Watch for anything odd, anyone suspicious. I have to seem to play their game until her safety is assured, which it should be in only a couple of days, if all goes according to plan. And then I will bring them all to justice."

"What is the plan?"

Again I considered before speaking. "There are a few things I must do first, but in a few days I am going to turn the evidence of their crimes over to Senator Alan Remington. Can you remember that name?"

"Senator Alan Remington," he repeated.

"Good. I am going to spend this evening organizing this evidence, and I am going to place it in that box." I indicated a wooden trunk in one corner. "That box will be exactly where it is now, but after tomorrow, no one will see it there. I am going to have Katrina put an invisibility charm on it."

"A what? She can do that?"

I nodded affirmatively. "And so that is one thing I will need for you to do. I don't expect anything to happen to me, but if it should, I will need you to take this evidence to the senator. It is of the most vital importance, David. And you will have to keep yourself safe in order to do this, so please, don't take any foolish risks."

He gave a lopsided smile. "I'll stay away from spiders, sir." He added more solemnly, "And if anything happens, I'll take this evidence to Senator Remington, I swear it."

I clasped his shoulder again. "Thank you, David. You've put my mind at ease."

I gave him another scientific text (this time, he wanted one about medicine, having become intrigued by Katrina's potions) and spent the evening, as I had said, carefully writing up the evidence of Hawke's and Dorn's embezzlement. It did seem an inadequate charge, but I had very little else to go on.

On Sunday afternoon Katrina and I walked to the home of Quincy Addison, Sanskrit scholar. I carried an empty valise which I reckoned should be large enough to hold the Magellans' tablet. We reached the house, a red brick house on a quiet street, and paused on the stoop. Katrina closed her eyes, and I felt the valise become heavy in my grasp. The sensation shook me, even though I had been expecting it, just as it had shaken me to see her make my trunk of evidence invisible that morning.

I was reaching for the tarnished brass knocker when I paused suddenly. "Katrina, would you...oh, good Lord."

"What?"

I shook my head. "I cannot believe the things I am asking you to do today."

She took my hand and spoke gently. "More magic?"

"Yes." I hesitated a few seconds longer before explaining, "I would like for you to read this man's thoughts, to be certain he is not in some way connected with Hawke's conspiracy."

"Of course, my love."

Without further delay, I knocked. There was no response. I knocked again, more loudly. This time I heard a sound from within. When the door still did not open, I raised my voice as I pounded again. "Professor Addison? It's Constable Crane. I sent you a message yesterday."

A few seconds later the door was thrust open and a short, slight man blinked up at me through his spectacles as if I were some sort of unusual specimen he was classifying.

"_You're_ Constable Crane?"

"None other."

"I don't believe it. You don't look nearly thuggish enough to be a constable," he declared. To my astonishment, he without preamble grasped my head in his hands, checking the proportions of my skull. I was too taken aback to protest. "Your phrenology is that of a man of learning! Yes, your logical faculties are strongly developed...and you have great compassion, and you are high-strung...and rather arrogant."

The giggles Katrina had been stifling since he began pawing my head burst through at last.

Quincy continued in a puzzled voice, "The shape of your organ of valor is very irregular."

So is my valor itself, I thought but did not say. Pressing my lips together in annoyance, I reached up to remove his hands. "Thank you for your diagnosis," I said drily, trying to smooth my hair. Suddenly catching a bit of my love's mischief, I added, "Perhaps you could also evaluate Lady Crane for me. Though I really should have had that done before I married her."

Katrina looked as if she could not decide whether to laugh or throw something at me. However, she allowed him to feel her head. After a moment, he quoted absently, "Her worth is above rubies."

I took in her expression and remarked, "I don't believe that rubies gloat."

"Stubborn, though," he added. His fingers moved back and forth over her forehead a few times. "Fascinating!" He peered at me. "A high-strung man like you married to a woman with pronounced psychic capabilities? That was unwise."

_"What?"  
_

"The slight swell at the center of her brow," he explained matter-of-factly. "Very unusual. Denotes supernatural powers." As if he were asking if it were raining out, he inquired, "Why are you not following a calling that suits your mental gifts?"

Feeling a bit breathless from his rapid subject changes, I answered, "May we come in?"

"Of course! What were you waiting for? Come in, come in."

Judging from the house, Quincy Addison was a man of means. Intriguing artifacts abounded, and every wall was lined with books. In the foyer, I glanced through the three open doors which presented themselves; each book-lined room boasted at least one large desk with pages of notes stacked neatly. Quincy led us into one of the rooms, apparently at random, and sat down without inviting us to follow suit. But I had already gathered that this man was too absorbed in his own intellect to pay any attention to such trivia as civilities. Katrina and I sat down uninvited.

In spite of the abundant evidence of scholarly activity, the place was clean and orderly, and I was soon to discover why. A middle-aged housekeeper appeared unbidden with a tea tray. With a resigned glance at her employer, she asked us, "Won't you have some tea? Would you like anything else?" We politely declined.

Without actually looking at the tray, Quincy began stuffing the tea-cakes briskly into his mouth. I gathered this was his habit, to eat what was set before him without giving it a thought. Meanwhile, his gaze was intent upon us. "Well? What is a man of the mind doing solving problems with his fists?"

"I am not," I retorted, offended. "It is possible for a constable to solve crimes using his brain."

He blinked at me. "I have never heard of one doing so."

Katrina smiled at me affectionately and proudly. "That is because he is the only one. He is reforming the constabulary."

"What use is a brain for police work?" he wanted to know.

Naturally I could not resist this chance to speak about my methods. I began with a brief summary of the chemical reactions to common poisons I have learned to detect. He was so intrigued by this that I continued on, speaking about autopsies, about what we can learn from the position in which a body falls, and about the most important factor at all, motive. He was fascinated. I think many things fascinated him, actually, for his remarks showed knowledge of many abstruse topics. He asked endless questions while Katrina listened quite patiently.

But at length I had to come to the purpose of our visit. "We have a tablet with a Sanskrit inscription that we need translated. It is most urgent."

Clearing off the desk carelessly, he asked, "How on earth can a Sanskrit translation be urgent?"

"Trust me, it is." I set the valise on the desk and opened it, removing the halves of the tablet carefully. Even though I had known they would be there, I could not help being startled when I saw them. I glanced at my lovely witch, amazed by her for the thousandth time.

"I don't see how this can have any bearing on a criminal investigation." He peered at the inscription intently. "Unless the murderer was a demon."

I felt cold all over. "W-what?"

"Well, this inscription is about the devas, evil spirits. But I suppose, if you are married to a sorceress, that it makes a certain kind of sense for you to be involved in such things."

I found it necessary to sit down. Katrina shoved my teacup back into my hand and I took a swallow of the stimulating liquid gratefully. "Could you please copy the inscription down?" she asked firmly. "I am afraid we cannot leave the tablet itself with you."

Without looking up, he said, "Certainly." He pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer and began painstakingly copying the symbols.

As he finished, I asked, "How long do you think it will take to translate? We need a phonetic interpretation as well as a translation."

Still without looking up, he said, "Oh. Tuesday night, I suppose."

I looked at Katrina inquiringly; I doubted Quincy Addison had a strong sense of time. Amused, she gave me a reassuring nod.

I put the tablet back into the valise and we took our leave. Quincy scarcely seemed to notice that we were going, so intent was he already on the translation. We paused on the stoop once more so that Katrina could return the tablet to the museum. I felt the valise grow lighter as I held it.

"Thank you, my love. Now, we need only wait until...ow!"

She had grasped a handful of my hair and given it a firm pull. I grinned helplessly as she put her hands on her hips; she was laughing even as she glowered at me. "I'll get you for this! Having my skull evaluated indeed!"

"I wasn't evaluating you, I was evaluating him!" I protested with laughter, holding my hands up appealingly. She took a menacing step toward me, trying very hard not to smile, and failing.

"Meaning what?"

I made an elaborate show of keeping a safe distance away from her, as if that did any good with an angry witch. "Why, I already knew that you were as close to perfection as a mortal can be. If he had not agreed, it would have proven that he didn't know what he was talking about," I pleaded.

She finally surrendered to her own laughter, taking my arm. "You certainly know how to get yourself out of trouble, Constable. At any rate, he summed you up well enough."

I did not bother to argue with her agreement with his charge of arrogance; I could well imagine my fairy sprite's teasing response to _that_. Instead I asked, trying to sound surprised, "You think I don't look thuggish?"

 

*

 

"About as thuggish as Mr. Addison!" I parried gleefully, dodging Ichabod's imminent tickle-attack. I whirled away from him, nearly tripping off the curb into the cobblestone street. Ichabod lunged to catch me, alarmed but still smiling.

Pulling me back onto the walk, he laughed, "I should hope that's a compliment, considering that you once didn't find the trait quite so repellent."

I kissed his cheek quickly to dispel the sudden apprehension that filled his eyes despite the fact that he had made the remark in jest. "Be glad that you were spared the foolishness of an adolescent infatuation," I reassured him wryly.

"I certainly am," Ichabod said with feeling, pausing to gaze at me as the early evening breeze stirred the leaves above us. I leaned into him, caught on his unfinished phrase, mesmerized by the moment. _How rare, _I thought,_ must a love so enchanted be? _His breath a wondrous rush against my ear, my husband finished, "For I consider myself the most fortunate man living, to have found my true love on the first try!"

"And I consider _my_self," I murmured when at last our lips parted, "the luckiest woman on earth, considering that my backward husband is daring enough to kiss and whisper nonsense to me in the middle of the street."

Ichabod went slightly red, as I had expected he would. I found myself recalling that night again, when, upon discovering me as I read, his thoughts became such that I might have known his cheeks to be fleetingly crimson had the light not been so dim. I had seen more in those thoughts than he gave himself credit for. By no means was I unused to discovering scandalous notions in the heads of the country lads by whom I had been surrounded since childhood. More than once I coyly denied Brom a parting kiss on account of where his intentions even unintentionally lay. I enjoyed that sly little game, denying a trifle of affection on a count that my suitors could never for the lives of them guess! But only with Ichabod did I find myself more eager to give than to deny. Unlike any other young man that I had ever known, his self-supposed imprudent musings had driven him instantly to thoughts of proposal. How often does desire immediately resolve itself into a lifelong commitment? Almost never. Ichabod Crane's honor, as far as I was concerned, was worth far more in comparison to a ruby than I ever would have considered myself.

As ever it had done and ever it would, Ichabod's touch proved my lifeline to the present. Sometimes I think that I would have been lost in remembrance forever, if not for him. For when all was said and done in Sleepy Hollow, what more than memories would I have had to live for- or to die for- if he had not survived?

"Katrina, Katrina, Katrina," Ichabod mock-chided, tightening his arm about my shoulders and leading us in the direction of Raleigh Avenue. "I couldn't possibly give you the satisfaction of being the sole walking bundle of contradictions in this marriage, now, could I?"

How good it was, to be lighthearted again! At dinner that night, only David was in a somber mood. The boy excused himself early, making an unusually profuse show of yawning. Ichabod sensed my disquiet over David's behavior, and as a consequence I had to fight for the right to clear the table. After winning nothing but a few good-natured blows from the dishtowel, I resigned myself to watching.

On the way upstairs, I finally worked up the nerve to ask Ichabod what was bothering David. I'd been afraid that mention of it would somehow ruin the favorable turn of events. Finally, our hard-won evidence seemed to be falling into place. Even the horror of the demon séance and the pain in my palms were fading.

"David was rather distracted at dinner," I observed. "Is he onto something?"

"Yes," Ichabod replied. "He knows how potentially high the stakes are in this case. He confronted me last night, expressing the desire to help in any way that he could. I gave him stewardship of the papers in the trunk, should any harm befall me."

"It will _not_," I said with determination, opening the bedroom door before us. "We have every piece now. The tablet's contents are in translation. You've uncovered the full extent of Hawke's scheme, and now you know what must be done to stop it."

"Yes. That is what I hope," Ichabod sighed, his brow creased ever so slightly.

"Please don't tell me you're playing the devil's advocate!"

"In a situation such as this, I've come to the point where it's hard not to. Never again will I plunge headlong into a case without leaving room for reservations. Because, last fall... I made a mess of things long before I cleaned them up."

"What matters is that you _did_," I comforted Ichabod, drifting after him to the window. "Living proof is the best kind," I added, unpinning the shutters so that they opened wide to receive the night's cool, dark blue sky.

"If life were not so complicated," Ichabod conceded with a weary smile, embracing me from behind, "then there would be no excuse for a solution as simple as _you_."

"Simple, you say?" I asked with amusement. I did an about-face, pulling him onto the cushioned window seat. I tossed my hair over my shoulder, letting it cascade over the windowsill into the darkness. "Then let's give that equation another go, shall we?" I asked as primly as I could, unable to prevent a mischievous grin from spoiling my schoolgirl demeanor.

"You're incorrigible!" Ichabod muttered, having no more success in keeping a straight face than I.

"Ah, ah!" I scolded. "I require a proof in support of your answer. You must show me _step... by... step _how you came to that conclusion," I challenged, kissing first his forehead and then his lips and then his neck. "I never was that good with numbers."

"You had better pass the exam afterward, that's for certain!"

The next morning, a knock at the front door interrupted breakfast. David leapt to his feet but was promptly returned to his chair by my warning look.

"Stay where you are," Ichabod said with annoyance, lowering his fork onto a plate that I knew for certain would not be cleared. "Perchance it's Mr. Addison come to ask a few more questions, or..." Ichabod hesitated, at a loss for words. In truth, I was as startled by the caller as he was. Monday morning at eight o'clock was an unusual time for visitors, let alone visitors in _our_ home, a thing of which we had seen none until Christopher and Isobel. I took his hand in concern and rose with him, only to be urged back into my seat.

"Stay with David," Ichabod said in a low voice. "He is too excitable, and this is most likely nothing. God forbid Christopher should show up any time he fancies himself game for a political discussion!"

I nodded, mutely offering David another apple _tartelette_ as Ichabod left the kitchen. He refused, staring at me a little crossly.

"I'm not hungry anymore, thanks."

"Nor am I," I said softly, lowering the plate. I heard Ichabod open the front door. He offered whoever was there a reserved greeting. I was relieved to hear a young stranger's voice in reply- it was a courier, no doubt, with word from Mr. Addison or the twins. I rose from the table and glanced around the corner. I watched the lad on the doorstep tip his hat, place a clean white square of paper bearing an unfamiliar seal in Ichabod's hand, and depart. Ichabod turned around, staring at the delivery as if he expected it to explode. My heart skipped a beat, but I missed not one. I returned to the table, stacking the used plates slowly. David pushed his away warily, looking to me as if for an answer to a question not even he himself was sure of.

"Clear these away, if you would, David," I said calmly. "Mr. Addison's sent word on the translation's progress. I'm going to have a look."

"How do you know it's from Addison?" David asked.

"Ichabod has exchanged correspondence with him a few times from work. He brought the notes home to show me. I recognize Addison's seal," I lied, unhurriedly leaving David to the task I had given him.

Ichabod stood rooted to the spot, reading the now-open note. Quite unaware of my approach, he made no attempt to mask his consternation. Ichabod stared heatedly at the paper, as if he wished to burn what he saw written there. His jaw was set in undisguised fury. I did not need to read his mind, not with such legible outward signs.

"It's from Hawke, isn't it?" I whispered once I was close enough.

Ichabod jumped a foot at the sound of my voice. "_Yes!_" he yelped, regaining his composure, "Yes, it-it is, unfortunately. What _nerve_, summoning me when he knows full well I'm due to report in half an hour. By God, this had better be excusable as acting in the line of duty." Ichabod half folded and half crumpled the note, handing it to me.

"Evidence," he said brusquely. "I don't want to see it."

"Understood," I reassured him, glancing over it before tucking it into my sleeve. The missive was brief and a touch impudent, summoning Ichabod to Hawke's home for an undefined "conference of great significance" which "you will no doubt agree is imperative, Constable Crane." I put my arms around Ichabod, glad of his immediate surrender to my embrace. I whispered, "I have confidence in you. I know this game is one that you must play. Soon it will be over, my love. But be careful!"

Ichabod kissed me gently, reminding me that the previous night's studying would stand as proof of our strength no matter what happened. "I shall. The sooner I see this man and his cohorts behind bars or... well, the sooner I see them taken care of, the better!" he said resolutely.

I pressed the book in his pocket. "I'm with you no matter where you go. Always!"

"And I with you, Katrina."

I watched him disappear around the corner as always, this time more full of anger than apprehension. I was irreversibly resentful toward those who consistently underestimated my husband's genius. Hawke was in for the surprise of his life, as far as I was concerned. No, nothing could have and nothing would ever prepare him for the likes of Ichabod Crane. And if necessary, the likes of _me_.

After committing Hawke's summons to the charmed trunk in the attic, I returned to the kitchen and found David dutifully scrubbing the plates in the sink. He glanced nonchalantly over his shoulder.

"How's the translation coming?" he asked.

I breathed a sigh of relief. David had not been eavesdropping. "Three fourths complete," I said, praying that my foolish words would come true. "We should have it on the morrow."

"We had better. We'll need it," David said quietly.

"Please stop worrying, David. It's all but finished. You still feel that it's this close to home?" I asked incredulously, uncertain of whether I was trying to reassure him or to reassure myself. "You think that this case cannot be solved without another skirmish of sorts under this roof?"

David put down the dishes and turned to face me squarely. There was such concern in his eyes that I was instantly sorry for what I had said. David sighed, "Katrina, take one look at your hands and then tell me if you still don't know the answer to that."

I squeezed his shoulder quickly and retreated to the living room, finding that I had no reply to give. I had worked so hard to push aside my fears of that one night, tried so hard to believe Ichabod's insistence that all would be well. And I _still_ believed in his reassurance. I had forced myself to accept that I was in the wrong, that my fears were largely ungrounded. What bothered me was that David had the same misguided outlook. And as I studied the esoteric scabbing on my palms, the less certain of how misguided David was I became.

I went about the housework in a pensive but not altogether unsettled mood, finding David's unbidden assistance and apologetic smiles ample reparation for what had passed between us. Barely an hour and a half had passed since Ichabod's departure when a second knock sounded on the front door. David put down the cloth that he had been dusting with.

"It's probably Colin," he said, turning to head for the door. I placed a hand firmly on his arm.

"I'll get it. It could be another message. Isobel's fond of sending them around this time."

"All right," David sighed, picking the cloth up and sulkily running it over the edge of the mantelpiece.

I opened the door with a newly cleaned throw rug still slung over one arm. A tall young man whom I did not recognize bowed to me. I noted his courier's dress and the folded slip of paper in his hand.

"With whom in this house do you have business?" I asked.

"Why, the none other than you, Lady Crane. I have here," the man said, unfolding the paper slightly as if to verify its contents, "a message from one Ichabod Crane... who would be your husband, if I am not mistaken?"

"Yes," I said, remaining aloof. I was appalled not only by his nosiness but by the fact that he flouted the knowledge of our names as if it were a matter of great consequence to him. "Please give me what you have brought and leave me to it at once. I don't believe that I'll use your services for the return message. I prefer postmen who realize that what's on the inside of the documents entrusted to them is not their business," I informed him icily, reaching for the letter. The rug slipped off my arm, forgotten.

Much to my shock, the courier withdrew the note, withholding it at a distance. The change in his demeanor was electrifying. His mildly pretentious professional air blossomed into a wicked smile. He shook one finger at me, as if scolding a naughty child.

"I should have listened to him. You've got quite a tongue indeed, my lady, not to mention... well, the _eyes_ to match, for one-"

"How dare you! Give me my husband's note and get out of here at once!" I stormed, taking a furious step toward him. Only when I was well within his reach- only when it was too late- did I ask incredulously, "Wait... you should have listened to _who?_"

The courier unfolded the paper in front of my face. It was as blank as his expression had gone, cold and calculating. I began to back away from him, grappling for the door behind me. He advanced upon me slowly, as if that was exactly what he had hoped I would do.

"Why," he said patronizingly, "my lady, who else but the good Reverend? Surely you remember-"

"_DAVID, RUN!_" I shouted over my shoulder, staggering at the sight of two other men, who appeared out of nowhere. They had known about David, and they were prepared to take him, too, if he got in the way. David's eyes widened, and for a few moments he looked as if he would rush to my side. I pleaded with him for one eternal second, and with tears in his eyes he turned on his heel and ran toward the kitchen. I heard the back door open and slam shut. Resisting the urge to scream, I forced my terror back down my throat. Anger as gripping as the fire-freeze of the demons' realm spread through me. I had no choice but to defend my home, even though it would mean giving myself away. I had known that it would come to this. And I had not listened to myself.

Oh, my love, if only you had been right!

The false courier grabbed my wrists, pushing me backwards into the house, followed by the other two. I willed the door to slam shut behind the four of us, jamming the bolt while I was at it. None of my assailants seemed to realize what I had done. As I struggled against the courier, one of the others produced an iron clamp device of sorts and snapped it over my wrists. The courier let go, eyeing me calmly from head to toe. I was terrified, but my instinct told me to wait. At least I had kept the other two from pursuing David. I bolted the back door and quickly unbolted it again. I could not foresee how it would play out. I could only wait, acting moment by moment.

"Lady Crane," he said evenly, "telling the boy to run was unwise. Now you're to be punished not only for what your husband's done, but for your own misstep as well."

"That's a lie," I spat, forcing myself to take deep breaths. "You're just trying to make me squirm. If you wanted the boy, then at least one of you would have followed him. You even closed the door and locked it behind you, for God's sake."

The courier gave me a puzzled look and then glared at his partners. "Jess, you idiot," he said to the shorter one, "unlock it. What did I tell you about keeping a clear escape path?"

Jess sputtered like a fish for a few minutes, unable to explain why the door was bolted. The taller man simply rolled his eyes, as if to say to the courier, "I _told_ you we shouldn't have brought him!" The courier fumed, "Unbolt it now!"

"Yessir!" Jess cried, forcing the bolt open with oafish fingers.

The courier turned back to me, annoyed. I slid the bolt back into place.

"He slid it back again. Quite impressive command you have of your men," I retorted.

"Damn you, Jess, unlock it!" said the tall man, who had not seen what I had done. But Jess had seen _something_.

"The bolt put itself back! Honest to God, just slid, _click_, like that!" Jess cried.

The tall man shoved Jess out of the way and slid the bolt for the second time. I promptly dislocated it. The tall man took a step back.

"See?" Jess whined from the floor, pulling himself back up.

The courier had seen it, too. He glared at me and said, "Your husband's clever gadgets won't help you, my lady. I suggest you wipe that smirk off your face."

Jess had scrambled to his feet and was furiously battling the bolt. Each time he slid it back, I slid it in the opposite direction. The tall man tapped Jess across the back of the head in annoyance.

"Leave it, dolt. What have we got to run from, besides? It's just a _woman_, and if she screams, she dies. No one'll come running to help you, sweetheart."

"Won't they?" I said innocently, raising my shackled hands before me. The three men stared as the device's lock came undone, snapping it in two. They gaped at the two halves as I suspended them in midair on either side of my freed wrists.

"My husband's clever tricks won't help me, no," I said, my helpless tone turning to venom. "But my _own? You had better believe it!"  
_

I sent the two iron bars sailing, two unwieldy nails driven by thin air. I struck Jess in the side of the head with one and hit the courier full force in the stomach with the others. With a wail, Jess fell, unconscious. The courier roared and fell not far from him, clutching his stomach. The tall man, dazed, took a step backwards before deciding to lunge at me. I turned the iron bars in his direction, aiming them directly at his head as I ran for the kitchen.

The tall man ducked, cursing as he dropped to the floor. "Hell's fire! She's one of Lucifer's own!"

I heard the courier moan as he struggled to his feet, "Like Hell she is! You're as gullible as your brother, Robert. Drag that doornail to his feet and let's get her!"

"But... but you saw-!"

"I didn't see anything! After her!"

I shoved the kitchen door shut behind me, leaning against it for a few moments, gasping. My head was spinning with the sheer concentration that simultaneous flight and a telekinetic attack had taken. I heard what I assumed to be the courier staggering painfully after me.

"No," said Robert.

The courier stopped in his tracks. I hardly dared breathe as I edged my way along the wall to the cupboards. "What?" he groaned in disbelief.

"I said no!" Robert growled. "My brother's bleeding like all get-out and you want me to chase that devil wench? I don't think so. Jess might not be good for much, but he's family. And I'll be damned if I stay one more minute in this fiery pit. I may be a crook, but I'm a God-fearing man. I'm getting him out of here!"

"Good riddance, then!" the courier shouted. "I can handle one little girl. You two were the ones who fouled us up with your buffoonery in the first place!"

I undid the bolt to save Robert the trouble, causing him to yelp, "God have mercy!" I heard him drag his inert brother, who groaned faintly, to the front door and exit with severe difficulty. The courier's labored footsteps loomed nearer, accompanied by a profusion of curses with every breath he took. By then, I knew exactly what I was going to do. One man was less trouble than three. I knew from experience that bravery often takes a crowd. I was anxious to see how courageous the impudent courier would prove on his own.

I stood between two drawers with my back to the counter, hugging myself and sniffling as if defeated, waiting to die. The courier was conceited enough for the ploy to work. He burst through the door, doubled over and glowering. He had tied his vest about his midsection, and I permitted myself a yell at the sight of the blood seeping through it. In truth, I was shaken by what I had done. I had nearly killed two men.

"As far as I'm concerned, now, my lady," the courier rasped, drawing one of the metal bars from behind his back and raising it as he came toward me, "this affair is no longer an order of His Lordship Hawke. This lies between me and thee, my beauty, and no one else!"

"Is... is that so?" I quavered, shifting from one foot to the other as if I longed to flee yet knew the attempt would be fruitless. "After all... you saw nothing, remember? So how can it possibly be a quarrel between-"

"You talk far, far too much for a lady of your standing," the courier barked, now only five feet away. "I'm going to enjoy killing you. You helped those wretches make a fool of me- I don't know _how, _though I suppose I should have known they were too stupid to know a faulty piece of equipment from a working one! Any last words, my lady? Did your husband not teach you that it's unbecoming to behave as you do? Any last thoughts on luring death with that infernal impudence?"

"Yes," I said, standing up straight. "Though I really can't say what I think of it, because it was _you_ who brought it upon yourself."

Just as the courier snapped to attention, snarling as he dropped the vest to reveal that he was not torn open but had used some of Jess' blood to enhance his injury, the drawers on either side of me slid open. A dozen pieces of shining cutlery rose from each, taking their places in fatal, orderly formation. I turned the host of blades slowly until each point was in line with a different vital point on his body.

"I advise you to get out of this house, as I so kindly asked you to begin with. If you do not, I'll make a pincushion of you from your eye sockets to your toes. Understood?"

The courier dropped the iron bar, raising his hands slowly. His eyes never once left mine, full of an incredible mix of horror, fury, loathing, and defeat. He bowed to me mockingly as he had once before. I took a few menacing steps forward, watching his eyes bulge at the sight of the knives advancing with me like so many airborne silver soldiers on the march. Panicking, he clumsily fled backwards.

"Under-Understood, understood, Lady Crane! How much will it take for you to accept a gentleman's surrender?"

"A gentleman's surrender?" I echoed, continuing to stalk him. "What gentleman? I was not aware that there was one present. And if there were, he would not be the one from whom I demand surrender, would he? No, I'm more concerned with a spineless, disrespectful cur. I stop here," I hissed, pausing just beyond the kitchen doorway in the living room. The courier stumbled and tripped over the other half of the iron clamp. "If you aren't gone in the blink of an eye, you can say goodbye to your own! Both of them! And I'll only just _begin_ there, _kind sir_."

He was on his feet in five seconds and out the front door in fewer still. I let my eyes fall to the floor where one half of the iron clamp lay. Blood graced the end of it, and a bright stain as big as both of my fists combined graced a nearby patch of carpet. Dark footprints marked a scuffle in brackish soot drug in from some unknown alley. I was suddenly so nauseated that I could no longer focus on levitating the knives. They dropped one by one at my feet. I gagged, running for the kitchen, desperate to reach the back door.

"David!" I choked, staggering into the backyard. "Dear God, David! Where are you? David... David, _please!_"

I fell in a heap at the edge of the herb garden, where the year's new crop had just begun to sprout. I clasped my hands fiercely against my heart in hysteria, as if I meant to pray in my madness. "_David!_" I wailed, pressing my hands together until I felt a few scabs tear.

The neighbors' shed door creaked open. I raised my head and saw David come rushing toward me. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but his eyes gleamed with relief. I rose to meet him, not caring that he ran right through the garden and nearly knocked me over. I held him so fiercely that I thought we might both suffocate.

"I knew you were alive, I knew you were alive!" he sobbed over and over. "I could hear you shouting at them. That was how I knew, that was how I could stay put... but I almost couldn't forgive myself for not staying! I almost failed Ichabod again!"

"David... David," I cried, "no! Don't say that! We're both alive, we're... here.... You were never meant to be my bodyguard. It was my duty to protect you. I told you to run, and you did."

"Are they gone?"

"Yes," I whispered, choking on the simple reply.

"Katrina, what did they do to you?"

"It's... It's not what _they_ did to me," I said, sickened all over again. "They cornered me in the living room after you'd fled, they... put some kind of shackle on my wrists, said some nonsense about... about... _David, it's what _I_ did to _them!"

David's eyes cleared almost instantly. "What are you saying? They obviously got what was coming to them!"

"I almost killed one of them!"

"What?"

"There's blood on one of the carpets. He could be dying right now, for all I know!"

"_How?_"

"I snapped the shackle and sent both halves flying at them. I hit one in the head, David, and-"

"He deserved it, Katrina! And before you say another word, think about _why_ you did it."

I swallowed my tears and held David close. How could so much wisdom reside in one so young? I dried my eyes on David's shoulder. Fighting in my loved ones' defense was all the justification that I needed.

"Ichabod's in trouble," I managed to say numbly. "At least I'm fairly certain that he is. Those men could have been bluffing. It could have been a ploy of Burris' to... obtain me for his own purposes, but then-"

"A ploy of _whose?_" David asked, even more confused than before.

"Never mind. They mentioned Hawke, too, however, hinting that they had come after me on his orders, on account of something Ichabod had done- which can only mean that Ichabod either refused some offer or that they've discovered his intentions!"

"That wasn't a note from Addison this morning, was it?" David asked suspiciously.

"No," I sighed, "the seal was Hawke's. Ichabod told me to do my best not to alarm you. I'm sorry that I chose to do so by lying."

"Don't apologize, Katrina. I can't hold anything against you for following Ichabod's instructions. Besides, it worked. But Ichabod's the important thing.... We have to get to him somehow!"

"No," I said firmly, despite the fact that I desperately needed to be wherever my husband was. "I don't know if that's the best idea. Remember, we don't know whether those men were liars or not. We don't know for certain if it was Burris' or Hawke's doing. David, my instinct tells me the same thing that yours is telling you... that Ichabod's facing a terrible threat. But I can't help but feel that we should do what Ichabod would want us to do under such circumstances."

"Which is?" David demanded. "Katrina, it could be a matter of life and death! It almost was for us just now!"

"Hide until he can reach us. Or until I can discern that it's safe for us to go to him... or even where he is, for that matter! Oh, David, what a fool I am! I could have read those fools inside and out, but I-"

"Still can," David said hopefully. "You were in a panic, and you still are. Just focus, Katrina, please... for Ichabod! I know you can find them."

I blinked in surprise. "David, I never told you that I can read minds."

David looked down at his hands, admitting, "I hear more than you would think, sometimes."

"In this case, I'm glad you heard what you did."

Feeling utterly drained, I closed my eyes and launched the most fragmented search I had ever conducted. My thoughts were tossed directionlessly this way and that, but I was quite fortunate to pick up the courier's distress as he fled. _For Ichabod..._ I held the signal as steady as I could.

"Hawke is the one who sent them," I breathed. "He's on his way back to Hawke at this very instant!"

"And?" David asked anxiously.

"That's all I can get. I'm not sure that they even knew exactly why Hawke wanted them to seize me. They only knew that he'd pay them handsomely for it. David, that's what has shaken me so.... They were sent to abduct me, not to kill me. The moment I fought back is when it turned fatal. I feel responsible for... for..."

"Unnecessary bloodshed? Don't, because it sure would have been necessary!" David sad vehemently. "Hawke might have had you killed anyway, just to break Ichabod. I don't want to know what he had in store for you, Katrina. Let's just go. If we have to hide, then we'll hide."

We looked at each other helplessly for a few moments. Neither one of us dared to admit that even though we both knew that we had to conceal ourselves, neither of us had any idea _where_.

"What are you going to do about the house?" David pressed. "You said there's a blood stain..."

"And about twenty knives scattered all over the floor," I muttered under my breath.

"_What_ did you say?"

"I chased the last attacker off with a bunch of cutlery from the kitchen."

"You're so brave, Katrina!"

"No," I said wearily, "I was furious and scared out of my wits. Come on. We've got to stop this and get away. I'm going to go upstairs and get a couple of pistols and a few other provisions. Take a couple of the knives, if you like, but don't touch the carpet in front of the door or the iron bar. Ichabod... wouldn't want for the scene to be disturbed, and by God, we _will_ have him back! Just as long as we have weapons, I'll see to it that we're well defended."

"You have an idea, then?" David ventured.

"I have, but I don't know how effective it will be. Lord knows how many agents Hawke has out and about!"

"You know where to take us?"

"Yes. To the one place I can think of that Hawke would never know to search."

"Is that possible?" David asked dubiously. "It seems like the enemy always knows everything."

I set my jaw and pushed myself in the direction of the house. David followed, running as if falling one step behind would mean being lost and never found again.

I told David, "I doubt that Hawke knows of Quincy Addison's existence. And besides, I have a translation to check up on."

As we locked the back door behind us, I felt a sense of loss in surrendering the only stronghold any of us had ever known. In the satchel that I carried was the charmed box from under the bed (which I had fetched only last minute upon remembering the bloodied handkerchief), a change of clothes for David, and some money. To these I added two knives that David had quickly snatched up from the floor even while he could not tear his eyes away from Jess' blood and the weapon that accounted for its presence. David carried my mother's small pistol, and I had donned a cloak and hidden one of Ichabod's on a belt beneath it.

I did not know how long we would be gone, or even if any of us would return. I felt very little concern for myself, my heart hardened against what less than half an hour before had reduced it to hysterics. We hailed a cab from what I knew to be the opposite end of Raleigh Avenue from the one the assailants had taken. Despite the short distance to Addison's, I refused to let us walk and risk being seen. Leaning against the leather interior and clasping David's hand as we rattled on, I sent out a plea that I knew I could not risk receiving an answer to:

_Isobel, the storm has begun. If... if he is alive, Ichabod will come to you. It will be the first place he looks for David and me. Isobel, I need you to tell him that we have gone where our one hope lies. He will know what I mean, and I regret that I cannot explain it now, for it concerns you most urgently. God-willing, Ichabod will explain everything to you. Tell him, Isobel... that I love him!  
_

_Katrina? Katrina, wait-_

_I cannot!_ I answered, tears welling up in my eyes as I closed off my mind. _They know now, Isobel. They know.  
_

As we neared Quincy Addison's address, I could think of nothing but the courier to whom I had granted his life... to whom I had granted his _escape. What a reward_, I thought cynically, _for sparing a man's life! _He had gone directly to Hawke, of that I was certain, and though I could not read his thoughts beyond the garrison of Dark Wards, I knew without question that his report consisted of the havoc he had encountered under my roof. I also knew that Ichabod was in Hawke's mansion. The feeling bore down upon me with each hoofbeat that carried David and me to what I prayed would be safety.

The driver gave me a somewhat condescending look as I paid him, as if I'd been daft to pay him the amount charged for a distance so easily walked. I ignored him and helped David out of the carriage. The coach pulled away, leaving us two wary-eyed fugitives on the curb outside Quincy's residence. I took the bag from David.

"I have no idea what I'm going to tell Mr. Addison," I said bleakly, "but as Ichabod once said, we're going anywhere but here. And this, David, is anywhere." I shrugged, taking a deep breath as we mounted the broad front steps.

David followed nervously a few steps behind. I summoned all of my courage and lifted one door's solid brass knocker. Other than the eerie reverberation produced, there was no answer from within.

"With our luck today, he's probably out," David muttered, disheartened.

"You've never met Quincy. My guess is he goes out about as often as Ichabod did before he married me."

Determined, I rapped several more times. After ten minutes, an odd shuffling made itself apparent. I took a step back as the heavy doors swung open. Quincy Addison squinted at me through a lens-bedecked visor of sorts that gave Ichabod's goggles a run for their money. He carried a dry paintbrush in one hand and a tiny, sharp pick in the other. On his feet were a bizarre kind of spats that almost resembled flippers. I heard David make an odd sound in the back of his throat, as if he could not decide whether to laugh or cry.

"Oh, it's you!" Quincy remarked, flipping the visor back with a creak. "I'd hoped you'd return soon. Because if I've translated that inscription correctly, you're in a load of trouble."

"You... You mean the translation's finished?" I croaked, not sure of whether to be grateful of his assumption or to be downright sickened by the thought of more trouble than we were already in.

"Indeed, indeed! Lady Crane, once I began work, I found that I could not leave it be. That tablet's inscription is the single most magnificent of its kind that I've ever seen, not to mention the deadliest. Won't you come in?"

Without further preamble, Quincy spun on his heel, gesturing for us to follow. David let out his breath, whispering, "And I thought Ichabod was stuck on his job!"

Before I had the chance to respond, Quincy remarked jovially, "Ah, there's how a young man ought to be, curious and good-humored! You needn't be afraid to ask about this getup. I've been picking away at an obelisk fragment obtained from my dealer for months now. It's a bugger to clean, I assure you. Had to design these spats to keep my shoes covered. I couldn't very well keep Beatrice hounding me about the dust creases in the nice leathers she picks out for me. Particular to a fault, old Bea is. As particular as your husband finds you, Lady Crane?"

"In some matters," I responded with a thin smile. I studied this wizened, white-haired wraith of a man and marveled at how spry he seemed for his surely more than sixty years. His tactless sense of humor, I realized, would save me from sinking into despondency for at least an hour or two.

Quincy led us to the same room in which he had held audience with Ichabod and I. He headed straight for his desk, pulling off his visor and tossing it in a careless clatter with the pick and paintbrush. He picked up a scroll of paper more than a foot long and unrolled it, perusing and muttering to himself as if to verify what was written there. David, looking stricken with the burden of our bag, glanced about the room, bewildered. I discreetly motioned for him to sit in one of the chairs opposite the desk. David gawked at me, as though he couldn't believe my sudden lack of manners.

"Yes, do as you're told, lad. Have a rest," Quincy muttered between phrases of half-spoken gibberish that I recognized as Sanskrit.

I took a seat in the second chair, knowing that whatever news Quincy had would be best taken sitting down. As if on cue, the middle-aged maid, Beatrice, hustled in with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other.

"For heaven's sake, sir, do tell me when we've got guests a-calling! I've nothing ready in the kitchen whatsoever!"

"Then be a dear, Bea, and get dinner started, will you? Or at least some tea for the lady and this fine boy," Quincy suggested in between breaths of nonsense.

"But the observatory floor, sir! All that God-forsaken Phoenician or Grecian or whatever in the Lord's name kind of dust you've got scattered-"

"Egyptian, Bea. Forget it at once and go to the kitchen."

"Yes sir," Beatrice sighed in annoyance that sounded almost affectionate.

"Takes nerve and patience, my lady, working for the likes of _him,_" she informed me in a whisper as she left the room.

"Lady Crane knows all too well what it is to live with such a man. She married one."

"Bless your heart, love!" Beatrice called sympathetically over her shoulder.

Quincy finished his proofreading and lowered the scroll. Despite the droll remark that he had made seconds before, his expression had gone quite serious. He eyed the bag on the floor beside David's chair.

"Have you brought the artifact with you? I shall be frank. This is a more serious matter than any of you thought."

My heart sank. "No," I said, fear knotting in my stomach.

" 'No' as in you don't want it to be that serious or 'no' as in-"

"As in we don't have the tablet with us," I said, biting my lip. "It's not ours to begin with. It was stolen from dear friends of ours. In fact, I had to-" I choked in the middle of my confession, wondering if he was aware of just _how_ supernatural the powers that he had diagnosed me with were- "steal it temporarily so that you could copy the inscription."

Quincy, rather than a look of mortification, was fascinated. Taking a few excited steps nearer, he asked incredulously, "You _what?_"

"Had to steal it. The... party who stole it from our friends hid it in the cleverest place they knew of... The Museum of Arts and Antiquities, masked as a donation under a wealthy patroness' name. I... well... conjured it out of there and then conjured it back. That patroness... it so happens..." I faltered, wondering if it was wise to reveal every last detail of the case, "is the culprit's fiancée."

"Why didn't you out and tell me you're on the run?" Quincy asked without so much as blinking.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Because the truth is almost too strange to be told."

"In which case, I would like to hear it, Lady Crane. Your lives depend on it."

I continued to unravel the rest of the fantastical case, including the Magellans' dealings in the affair and the confrontation that had sent David and I running. Quincy looked troubled when I explained the summons that had come for Ichabod that morning, and that Ichabod had not returned.

"A clever trap," Quincy said darkly. "Clever and despicable. That's the price you pay for double-timing in the name of justice. Sometimes the only way, but the risks are incredible. You are lucky to be alive, Lady Crane. Or I should say, lucky to be a witch."

"I don't know if I'll ever see him again," I whispered. "I don't know if he'll make it to Isobel at all."

"Can you trace his thoughts, Lady Crane, as you say you have been doing so miraculously with these others? Truly amazing! I knew you were something special, but I never would have guessed the full extent of your abilities."

"I cannot," I said wretchedly. "Hawke's mansion is so thickly beset with Dark Wards that not even Isobel's Messengers could break through."

"I haven't the foggiest idea what those may be, but they sound reasonable enough for a man who is controlling one of the devas," Quincy sighed sympathetically. "I will keep you here as long as need be. And I have faith in your husband, Lady Crane. Judging by his phrenology, he also has a hidden streak of bravery that is absolutely incomparable."

"That is true," I said fondly. "He saved my life. In so many ways."

"A story not for here and now, however," Quincy said, resuming the scroll of paper. "I must warn you of what is written here. It must be read by your Sensitive friend as soon as possible. The emergency is in the manner of demon bound to the artifact. The longer it's in another's control, the more potential power it accumulates. If the creature is not freed soon... this Hawke and his amateur magician may well use it- provided they know it is possible- in a culminating act of destruction made possible by an hour most vulnerable to the working of dark magic. Lady Crane, I trust you know when those times are."

"Yes," I said tensely, beginning to wonder urgently what day it was. "Some hours of the night are more charmed than others...."

"We must hope that your husband escapes them as soon as possible."

"We must hope for that anyway!" I said fiercely.

Quincy cringed slightly, as if for once in his life not watching his tongue had hurt. He crossed the room and put one spidery hand over mine. "Lady Crane," he said gently, "I must read you what is written here. I feel it would be of great interest to you."

"You've put a phonetic interpretation as we asked?"

"Yes, and not only that. I have written the English equivalent above each line. Despite the tablet's venomous nature... I must say that the inscription is nothing less than poetry at its most exquisite. Or would you rather wait until your husband arrives?"

"No, read it. I think he would take the news better if he heard it from me."

Quincy unrolled the paper for the second time, breathing almost reverently. David, who had been dozing off, sat forward intently. I fixed my hands on the arms of the chair. I almost expected to feel the chill that I had experienced during the trance with Isobel. Quincy began to read in a hushed tone:

 

 

>   
>  _Ancient of days, blackest treasure of the ages:_  
>  _ I call you now, for you have served me well._  
>  _ Long and hard was the road into daylight;_  
>  _ longer still was loving the night._  
>  _ These words I bestow upon you,_  
>  _ my stricken beloved, poison-in-twilight,_  
>  _ because you have killed mortal shadows_  
>  _ and bloodied the stars with sunset colors._  
>  _ Come now, and in coming, go thy way,_  
>  _ for thou art in the air, but not of it_  
>  _ and cursed by earth for eternities_  
>  _ yet to come and never to be._  
>  _ I free you, my lover, my renegade beauty,_  
>  _ in whose arms I was never wont to rest,_  
>  _ but in whose un-spirit did I gladly cry_  
>  _ to underearth's lords and minions:_  
>  _ your mind and my heart shall never_  
>  _ agree until your mind ceases to live_  
>  _ in numbers, and my heart in the mist._

"Dear Lord," I whispered. "The last lines barely match the rest, and yet..."

"They are the loveliest part by far," Quincy finished for me, "and the contents of the smaller half. The half that was missing. It is as if it was written by another soul entirely, a plea for redemption to some god of greater light. To the ancients, religion and romance were often one and the same."

"Has it really changed that much?" I asked, looking up at Quincy with tear-filled eyes. My heart was too full to say what I wished, and that was this: never before had any set of words so perfectly captured my pride and my sorrow. And my love, who was not to be found however fondly I wished it. I wept into the side of the armchair, oblivious to David's pleas and Quincy's awkward reassurances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last three lines of the poem that appears in this chapter are by Kahlil Gibran. The rest of it is by irisbleufic.


	6. Chapter 6

I walked to Hawke's mansion, trying to reason away the gnawing unease I felt. My brain had reviewed all the facts I knew a dozen times; I knew that my plans were sound, and yet worry lingered. It takes only one uncalculated factor to set the best logic awry. I had learned this the hard way.

Hawke was not finished annoying me. When I arrived, I was greeted by a young soldier who fit Quincy Addison's idea of a constable far better than I did. He told me to wait a few minutes before Hawke would see me. I fumed inwardly, but did my best to seem calm; I was not going to let him know how easily he was irritating me. Already I had allowed him to ingratiate me with ease. My jaw set at the thought of how easily he had won my trust and respect. All he had had to do was seem to listen attentively as I spouted off about my pet theories, and I was eating from his hand. Much as I despised Hawke, at that moment I despised myself far more, for having been so easily won.

After a few long minutes, which I spent berating myself for being too trusting, I was shown into Hawke's study. I strode in. Hawke was behind his desk and did not bother to rise, or even greet me; he merely regarded me levelly. As I returned his cool gaze, I noticed that his eyes did not have any trace of that _something_ in the eyes which had come to denote magical powers for me. It was in my mother's eyes, and my wife's, and those of the Magellans, but not in Hawke's. His power must be centered in the demon he commanded. Once we had freed it, he would be no more magical than I. And I could then deal with him on my own territory.

After a long time, when I still had offered no comment, he finally conceded this little contest and broke the silence. "What did you learn about Remington?"

I looked at him coolly. "It seems that Senator Remington has been committing a great deal of embezzlement." Our eyes were still locked. I knew that the evidence against Remington was false, that Hawke had framed him, and as we looked at each other I felt certain that we understood each other.

"How shocking," he said expressionlessly. "Do tell me all about it."

"Don't you have anything more important to discuss?" I demanded, a bit of temper escaping me. "I am supposed to be reporting for duty even as we speak."

He waved a hand lazily. "I assure you that this is far more important. Sit down."

Trying to contain my impatience, I sat. I would clip his claws soon enough.

For the next hour or so, he asked one question after another about the so-called embezzlement. I answered them all more and more briefly until I finally ran out of patience and stood.

"Enough is enough, Hawke. I have to report. I shall see you again in a couple of days."

I waited for him to argue, but he only looked at me composedly. My stomach knotted; I knew that such equanimity in the face of a challenge is a clear sign of danger. When he remained silent, I strode briskly but still cautiously to the door.

I was not surprised to find the soldier waiting on the other side of it. When I opened it, he quickly leveled a pistol at me, saying nothing.

I froze. Hawke's voice sounded behind me.

"Perhaps you could stay and chat a bit longer, Constable." In a less friendly tone, he added, "We can handle this as gentlemen, Crane, or."

Glaring at Hawke, I returned to my chair. My nervousness was growing steadily. Hawke had to have some kind of dastardly motive in holding me here. I began to curse myself for having come, having allowed myself to become trapped. But what else could I have done? The only way I knew of to put an end to his evil games required that I seem to play along until we had the translation.

Hawke inquired, his manner casual but his eyes sharp and alert, "Did you find anything else about Remington? Anything other than his embezzlement?"

"I don't know what you mean," I lied.

"You did not learn about his bad habits?"

"What bad habits might those be? I don't think he is a drinking man."

Hawke examined me. Once more, I was certain that we understood each other perfectly.

Whatever he might have said was interrupted by a knock. It seemed he had been waiting for it; he called, "Come!"

Another soldier  I wondered uneasily how many of them were in the mansion  entered and spoke in Hawke's ear in a low voice. His eyes sharpened and at whatever he heard and skewered me.

"Excuse me for a moment," he said. He seemed to enjoy mocking me with his good manners under the circumstances. He rose and led the soldier out the door. I was not left alone, however; the first soldier came and stood in the doorway, staring straight ahead, but obviously ready to prevent me from perhaps searching the room for evidence or weapons. Hawke was no fool. I could not allow myself to forget that.

When he returned, two of the soldiers came with him. I eyed them all warily.

Hawke went back to his desk unhurriedly. The soldiers waited. After a moment, he spoke. "It seems that I overestimated you, then, Constable Crane. My own spies learned something about Remington weeks ago that you did not, with all your scientific methods."

"Really."

"Yes. So I do not think we will be needing your services after all. In fact, I have discovered someone who will be a far more valuable spy than you will, Constable Crane."

"Indeed." My trepidation was mounting with every second.

"Yes. Lady Crane."

There was a sound in the open doorway. I whirled, expecting to see my wife dragged in. But only one person was standing there, a smirking, reptilian little man.

The next thing I knew, I was in the doorway, my fingers tight around the throat of Simon Purnell. His eyes bulged from his reddening face and he scrabbled ineffectually at my hands.

The two soldiers quickly moved to me and grasped my arms, but I clung to that wretch's neck with all my strength. Another soldier, as well as a tall young man in rumpled courier's dress, appeared and together they dragged me off him. Though they were all husky lads and there were four of them, it wasn't easy.

When he at last escaped my grip, Purnell leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, glaring at me. The four men continued to hold me back. I tried to compose myself, but of course it was impossible. I ached to throttle Purnell, to tear him limb from limb. My whole body was shaking  not from my usual nerves, but from a violent hatred I would never have believed a Rational Man capable of. But then, Katrina always changed everything.

Hawke was chuckling. He sauntered over to us. I noticed how the others, all of them, looked at him respectfully. His diminutive stature seemed to have been forgotten. An irrelevant thought entered my head, that if he could make others forget his physical shortcomings, so could I.

Purnell's bulging eyes were fixed on me. His expression was a mixture of gloating and envy, along with a hunger that turned my stomach. "How did you find such a gem? Burris told me about the voice charm she used, to bargain him down about that amulet."

The tiny corner of my mind that still retained some rationality resolved to have another talk with Katrina about McRaker's Alley.

"But now we know something far more interesting," Hawke added. "My demon was monitoring your home this weekend, Crane. A mere precaution, Constable, but one which bore unexpected fruit. Your wife was reading Colonel Dorn's thoughts. With her powers, Lady Crane will be a far more useful spy than you." Hawke smiled. I glared at him.

"But she can do even more than that!" A monstrous light was in Purnell's eyes. My blood boiled. "When we tried to apprehend her"

"She's a witch!" the courier spat. "She was making things fly through the air! She nearly killed Jess, slamming the shackles into his head, and scared Robert out of his wits. And then she made knives fly through the air at me!"

"I warned you not to act against Lady Crane," I told Hawke through clenched teeth. I was livid. Three able men sent to overpower one supposedly helpless woman. Perhaps my own infernal cowardice was not quite so shameful as I thought.

The courier glowered at me. "She's in league with the Devil!" he told Hawke. "You've got to do away with her!"

This was the most horrifying hour of my entire life. The terrified fury in the courier's eyes  I had seen that expression once before, in the eyes of my own father, eyes that I had inherited. And with shame, I was remembering my own panic when I learned what my beloved was capable of. But God help me, even when I was out of my mind with terror, I could never have done anything to hurt her. Even when I had believed that she controlled the Headless Horseman and had set him to murder her own father, I had not been able to arrest her or tell anyone of her supposed guilt. I had been resolved to leave Sleepy Hollow and never breathe a word to anyone, to carry the secret to my grave  and the closer that was, the better.

Simon Purnell scowled at the courier. "Do away with her? You imbecile! She is priceless! She can conjure magical artifacts for us from all over the world  imagine the power we can command with her help! And she can levitate objects! The possibilities!" He leered. "All that, and beauty as well."

My furious lunge at him was so sudden that I almost eluded the soldiers' grasp on me. Quickly they pulled me back, tightening their grips painfully. They laughed softly at my resistance.

"Stay away from my wife," I said through stiff, numb lips, my voice taut.

"I'm sure you will be glad to hear that she is not in our custody yet, Constable," Hawke remarked amiably. His eyes had a gleam that belied his casual demeanour. "The abilities she displayed while defending herself were really remarkable. I assure you she will be well treated, because she is going to be very valuable to us."

"You are going to wish you had never been born," I told him in a low, tense voice. He smiled scornfully.

"In order to acquire Lady Crane, we need to know her Achilles heel. Every witch has one. You are going to tell me what hers is."

"Never." I did not bother to put any emphasis in my voice. Even as I said it, the thought of her recent illness sprang into my mind, along with all the worries that illness had inspired. Just one lucky blow, one trivial illness, and she would be as helpless as she looked. But as long as they did not know that, we had time, we had hope.

"I will do whatever is necessary to gain her secret from him," Purnell assured Hawke, looking more reptilian than ever. "I was mad for her when I thought her beauty was her greatest magic! Now, I would go to any lengths to acquire her."

"You are a dead man," I told him quietly, my voice filled with lethal hatred.

Hawke nodded at the soldiers; a few more had appeared and were surrounding me menacingly. At a less grave moment I would have found it flattering that they deemed it necessary to have so many strapping young men present to keep me in line. I suppose they realized the extent of my desperation.

"Let me know when the Rational Man is willing to be reasonable, Simon Magus," Hawke remarked, turning and heading back to his desk.

Purnell leered again and led the way out the door. A few more strong hands were clamped on me and they bore me down the hall, to a stairway heading down.

When I realized where they were taking me, I fought like a demon, but it was no use. There were too many of them. They half dragged, half carried me through the door, which swung open with a hauntingly familiar creak. When I saw what was on the other side, I found I could struggle no longer; my veins were filled with lead.

It seemed as if this moment had been inevitable since that day when I was seven and found my mother in a room like this one, her beautiful, loving face gashed and bloody.

No medieval inquisitor would have found this torture chamber lacking. There was a spiked chair like the one that scarred my hands, the rack, the thumbscrews, the strappado, and, by way of keeping up with the times, the Tomkins Confessional. And yes, there was an iron maiden. When my gaze fell on that, the world went black.

I awoke when they dumped a bucket of cold water over me. I was dangling by my wrists, which were shackled over my head. My arms were stretched painfully over my head, my feet only barely touching the floor, and my ankles were chained as well. My coat, vest and shirt had been removed. I tested the chains; they were as secure as I had expected them to be. I knew that after staying in this posture for a time, the muscles of my arms and back would hurt horribly. All of this was quite routine; I have seen the procedure far too many times in the constabulary. And Purnell continued just as my fellow constables should have: he pointed out every device in the chamber and described in loving detail exactly what each of them can do to a human body. The descriptions were as nauseating as they were frightening. And it was made worse by the fact that I have, unfortunately, seen many of these acts carried out, more times than I care to remember.

Purnell sidled up to me, leering. He was wearing some sort of ceremonial robe in keeping with his sorcerous pretentions. It was open-necked, revealing a tattoo high on his chest, a pentagram remniscent of the one Katrina once drew under my bed, but not the same. "Spare yourself, Crane. What is her weakness?"

I said nothing. In my mind, I was praying fervently: _God, give me courage, just this once in my life. Just this once.  
_

He lifted an iron from the hearth. One end of it was red-hot. He held it an inch away from the skin of my back for a minute before letting it touch me. I yelled. After a long time, he removed it and spoke.

"You will tell us sooner or later. How much suffering will you subject yourself to before you give in to the inevitable?"

I gritted my teeth. He burned my back with the iron again, and again, and again.

I screamed until my throat was raw. I heard a voice begging them to stop and realized with humiliation that it was mine. But I did _not _tell them how to overpower Katrina.

And in between touching the iron to my skin, he kept asking me questions. What was her weakness? Where was she likely to be hiding? What other powers did she have?

I told him _nothing_.

Worse were the _other_ questions he asked me about her  all the torture in the world could not have made me answer. His words made me strain against the chains, yearning to tear him to pieces. That such vermin should even _think_ about her, let alone think such thoughts. Purnell doomed himself a dozen times that day, and his fate had already been sealed.

I lost track of how many times I passed out. Every time, they simply dumped another bucket of water on me, adding shivering cold to the torment. I do not know how long this continued. My back was criss-crossed with burns, and every breath hurt.

At length I suppose they needed a rest. They left me there alone for a time, still chained, to ache and to contemplate what lay ahead of me. This is also routine. After this interlude of stewing, many stubborn victims are ready to say anything when their tormentors return.

I think it was only a few seconds after they left me that I lost consciousness again.

I woke with a cry from formless nightmares to find myself still alone with the devices of torture. I could not keep my eyes off the iron maiden.

I tried to force myself to think. I would rather endure an eternity of torture than betray Katrina. But I have seen enough confessions literally pried from helpless lips to know how little determination counts for under such circumstances. Sustained torture unhinges the mind, and in that temporary insanity, one will say anything. I had to stop them before they drove me to that point.

Had there been any means at hand I should have committed suicide to prevent them from forcing her secret from me, but I could not even move.

I examined the room, trying to view the hellish implements that lay about as weapons I could perhaps seize when they unshackled me to strap me into one of the devices. But how could I do that if I fainted again when they came for me?

I held that question in my head for a long time. I drew a breath and my newly quiet mind formed a resolute prayer. For once, others' underestimation of me would work in my favor.

When the door opened and Purnell returned with the courier and one of the soldiers, I stared at them. When they neared me, I let my head drop, my body sag against the shackles, my eyes close. I was so weary that it was not difficult to go limp. Assuming I had fainted again, they laughed scornfully and made some remarks I shall not record here. When I heard them I wanted to straighten, but I did not. I would put an end to their laughter soon enough.

I felt the shackles loosen and two men grasped me by my arms. My burns ached at the movement and my muscles protested.

"Where do you want him, Simon Magus?" one of them asked.

Purnell considered. "On the rack, I think. We might try the Tomkins Confessional later."

They dragged me towards the rack. My head down, I opened my eyes a slit. We were drawing near a table on which rested one of the irons they had used on me, still warm. I waited for my moment carefully. Just as we drew near I wrenched out of their loose grasp, seized the iron, and slammed it into the soldier's head with all my might. My back felt as if it were once more on fire at the movement, and the fire spread all through my body, giving me a Samsonian burst of strength.

Blood spurted from the soldier's head, but I did not stop to examine the damage; I fell on the courier and bludgeoned him until he fell. When I was certain that the man who had attacked my wife was dead, I took off after Purnell. I was determined that in order to stop me, they should have to kill me.

But Purnell had already fled, and just before I reached the door he had slammed it shut. I threw myself against it, hoping to batter it open, but it was too late; I heard a bolt being lowered on the other side. Furiously, I scanned the room for another possible exit, but there was none; no door, no window, nothing.

Gasping for breath, I looked around the room and tried to think. It took a moment, but at length my mind cleared enough that I was able to realize that they would have to open the door eventually. They needed things from me, and so they would return. That was what I needed to prepare for.

I needed a weapon. Well, I was in a room full of the worst kind of weapons. After studying the hellish implements around me, I decided to keep the iron I had already used. With that, I looked to my two victims.

I think it was a sign of how desperate I was that I felt neither nausea nor remorse. I knew the courier was dead; I had fully intended to kill him. Only later did I remember that I had always hoped to be able to refrain from killing throughout my career. But I tossed that aside without a thought when that man attacked my wife.

I noticed my uniform jacket, vest and shirt draped over one of the tables, right next to a set of knives of various sizes. Wincing as the fabric touched my flesh, I pulled on the shirt, and donned the vest even more gingerly. With the weight of Katrina's first gift to me over my heart, however, I felt stronger, braver, twice the man.

I claimed a couple of the knives, concealing them beneath my clothes. I did not want to put my uniform jacket back on, however. I would probably have to flee now that they knew I had escaped my chains, and when I did, I did not want to be wearing anything so eye-catching as that blasted uniform with its gaudy silver buttons. I have tried and tried to explain to the High Constable how inefficient anything so highly visible is for our profession, but as usual, he has not listened.

The unconscious soldier on the floor had dark hair, and that gave me an idea. I pulled his jacket and shirt off and positioned him to lie with his back to the door. Of course, his hair was rather shorter than mine, and his back was not crisscrossed with burns, but a few seconds of uncertainty was all I needed.

With these preparations made, I took up a pose near the door, ready with the iron. Distantly it occurred to me that I should be horizontal from pain, but it was not pain now, only a burning heat that served to fuel my rage. I waited.

In time I heard footsteps, the sound of several pairs of boots approaching. I hoisted the iron.

The soldiers burst into the room without caution. As I had hoped, the sight of a dark-haired, shirtless figure prone on the ground caused them a few seconds of confusion. I took advantage of them and felled two of them before they knew what had happened. Purnell was not with them; doubtless he was safe behind some locked door somewhere in the mansion. So he had gotten a stay of execution. But I would tend to him later. I was able to land a few more blows on the soldiers before they realized what I was about and attacked in return. I turned and fled through the door. I did not recall ever having run so fast.

I tore up the stairs and dashed down various corridors, turning corners at random. I could hear them behind me, but they were falling behind. I flew on. I could not even feel my feet touching the floor.

A few times I would turn a corner or burst through a door and surprise a couple of soldiers or uniformed men. In each case, I simply turned and chose another direction. They usually gave chase, and yet I managed to elude them, to my own surprise.

At one point I dashed into a large, dimly lit room, and what I saw in that room startled me so much that for a moment I actually stopped running. In a large cage was an enormous dog. I think it was Colonel Dorn's dog, Cerberus. But Cerberus was lolling on his side, meek as a lamb. He glanced at me disinterestedly and then looked away. The last time he saw me, I think he was speculating on how I would taste.

Around the dog's neck was a garland of some sort of highly aromatic herb; the same garlands bedecked the bars of the cage, and their scent pervaded the stuffy room. Before him was a plate heaped with meat; its messy appearance suggested that he had already gorged himself on it. It was not difficult to detect that the meat was drugged.

These people were lunatics.

A shout in the hallway from one of the soldiers reminded me of where I was, and I took to my heels again.

It was probably only a few minutes that I spent in the mansion's labyrinth of corridors, but it felt like hours. I had no idea where I was in the house; I could easily have been running in circles. It all looked alike to me; the same burgundy runners on the floors, the same drab paintings of illustrious dead people, the same closed doors everywhere I turned. I was afraid of opening any doors, afraid to find another gang of soldiers behind one of them.

But at last, I turned a corner and found a window, and in front of it, a tiny ornamental table supporting a porcelain vase. I seized the table, letting the vase shatter on the ground, and hurled it through the window. I followed, giving myself a few shallow cuts in the process. Pain shot through my shins as I hit the ground, but I did not have time to pay attention to it.

I glanced around frantically. I was on the side of the mansion. Around the corner, behind it, I glimpsed a hedgerow, a good nine feet tall. I looked to the front, to the street. There were a couple of soldiers, wearing servant's livery but given away by their military bearing, standing by the gate. There was no escape there. But there was the high wrought-iron fence, with its spiked tops. I ran across the mansion's huge yard to the fence and leapt, seizing the bars. I pulled myself over it, scratching myself on the spikes, and hit the street. And there, with the carriages riding by and finely dressed people looking at my shirtsleeves and disheveled appearance askance, I felt safe enough to stop running, to slow to a brisk walk. Surely Hawke's thugs would not dare to apprehend me with so many witnesses.

And yet, as I walked on, something kept nagging at me. In spite of my desperation, it still seemed that my escape had been far too easy. With so many soldiers, surely Hawke could have kept me within his walls. Why, then, was I on the street? He needed me so that he could learn Katrina's weaknesses and whereabouts.

My mind focused on the answer with certainty. Of course. When I had escaped from the torture, he had told the soldiers to let me escape in the hopes that I would lead them right to her. Hawke was clever. A pity he had gone to such lengths to acquire a worthy adversary.

I turned a random street corner and walked as purposefully as I could with my legs still shaking from all I had been through. Soon enough, I was in a humbler district and attracted less attention. Oddly enough, I was not exactly in pain; what I felt was a numb aching all over my body.

I stopped, pretending to rest by leaning against a street pole. As I did so, a furtive glance showed me a young man whose military bearing belied his rather foppish civilian clothing. I was certain he was following me. A couple of more pauses confirmed this.

I had to get rid of him before finding Katrina.

_Think, Crane. Use that brain you are so proud of. It has always been your only weapon, even in childhood.  
_

I noticed a chemist's shop and went inside. I bought some laudanum, a few other chemicals and a small empty bottle. My pockets were well stocked with money. Since I had been married, Katrina had always been most particular about making certain that I always had money with me, I think on the mistaken theory that I might get hungry and actually eat something while on duty. As I made my purchases, my pursuer waited outside. Before leaving the shop, I made the mixture I needed in the empty bottle, stopped it up and was on my way.

My next stop was a general store. I bought some cheap stationery, a pen and ink and a book of pins. Again, I took my purchases to a quiet corner of the shop to prepare them for their work. I dipped one of the pins in the mixture I had made. This combination ought to be potent enough even with such a small amount. I only hoped that it would go to its intended recipient. Though I would not mind if its addressee opened it, either. On one of the sheets of stationery I jotted down a meaningless note to the High Constable about not being on duty that day. I then folded the paper around the pin so that anyone who tried to open the letter would be scratched. When I was David's age, I used a similar trick on a schoolyard bully who persisted in stealing my books, though in that case I used a much milder substance. After that incident, my classmates treated me with considerably more respect.

On the street again, I kept walking until I saw what I needed. No uniformed courier for me; I needed an unscrupulous messenger boy. A few urchins waiting to be hired for sundry errands were hanging about, but it took me a few minutes to spot one shifty-eyed enough for my purposes. I handed him the note and a coin and pointed him in the direction of the watch-house  and of my pursuer. He raced off. A very furtive look back revealed what I had hoped for: my pursuer offered the boy several coins for the letter. I smiled to myself.

A moment later I heard him curse as my pin scratched him. I walked on. It was perhaps two minutes that a commotion made me turn around. Several people were gathered around my pursuer, who was half-conscious on the ground, groaning. Smiling grimly, I turned my footsteps in the direction of McRaker's Alley.

It was a simple enough deduction: Katrina had only one close friend in New York. Ironic, that she might now flee for safety to the district I had considered so perilous for her.

However, I was too cautious to go to the Magellans' tenement. If Hawke had troubled himself to meddle with their séance for the Ericksons, he must know of their existence, and possibly of their connection to us. Their home could be watched, for all I knew. I felt certain the watch-house was; if I approached it, I had no doubt I would be apprehended again before I entered.

A few minutes' consideration showed me a solution. I would disguise my message as a matter of business. I went into the first restaurant I saw. The place was noisy and none too clean, but it offered small, dingy private rooms in the back. It was the kind of place where people who have something to hide go to transact their business. Had I been in uniform, the sight of me would have emptied the place. I paid for a meal to be served me in one of them and got an appraising look from the weathered man I spoke to; doubtless he was trying to discern what kind of misdeed I was about. As he showed me into the room, I informed him coolly that in a few minutes I would be needing a messenger boy. He nodded without surprise.

With the door closed, I sank gratefully onto the stained couch the room offered. Never had I been so exhausted. As if realizing that I at last had time to give it attention, the pain came flooding back, almost doubling me over, so that I wondered how I had come this far without collapsing. I was shivering and felt rather cold. Even in my drained state, I knew that I was in shock. For a few minutes, I allowed myself to simply rest, leaning with my chest and stomach against the arm of the couch to spare my back from contact.

A coarse-faced young woman entered with a tray of greasy food and very bad tea. I forced myself to eat a few bites, knowing I needed to fortify myself, and was genuinely grateful for the stimulation of the tea.

The nourishment, such as it was, gave me a little strength so that I could think through the throbbing pain. I spread a sheet of paper on the dirty table and closed my eyes, considering how to make myself understood to the Magellans and not to anyone else. After a moment, I wrote:

 

>   
>  _I would like to contact my dear departed Aunt Hildreth and my brother Wilbur. I wish very much to know that they are happy in the hereafter, that they have gone to a good place. Can you contact them for me? I should be most grateful and you would be paid handsomely. Please tell me when a meeting would be convenient for you. If you would, please answer by the same messenger._
> 
> _In gratitude,_
> 
> _Mr. Levi_

I read it over. Satisfied that the Magellans - or at least _Miss_ Magellan - would understand, I folded it and a few minutes later gave it to the boy they found for the errand.

I spent a restless half hour waiting for the reply. The pain prevented me from truly resting, and it hurt too much to pace. I could only try to sit still, since every move hurt more than I care to recall, my brain cooking up unpleasant conjectures. In spite of the pain, I jumped to my feet when the ragged boy returned. I paid him well; once I scraped out an existence doing such odd jobs. I would have liked to give him even more, but I did not dare draw attention to myself.

With the messenger gone, I unfolded the reply with trembling hands and read Miss Magellan's dainty script.

 

>   
>  _Dear Mr. Levi,_
> 
> _Rest assured that your loved ones are in a happy place. Your Aunt Hildreth has found rest with the one Hope for her as for all of us, and you will be happily reunited in time, so take heart. Even though she is not with us, she is not far away. With my powers, I feel that she wishes to speak to you, to give you her love and reassurance. It might be best if you were to call on us a few days hence, but if you feel truly urgent then please feel free to come sooner. We would so much like to aid you and your family._
> 
> _Sincerely,_
> 
> _Isobel Magellan_

For a few panicked seconds I thought that the note was telling me that Katrina was. But I quickly saw through her façade of religious platitudes and charlatans' patter to her true meaning. Isobel was clever indeed  and brave, to offer to let me hide with them. _The one hope for her as for all of us._ That had to mean Quincy Addison, on whom everything now rested. I tucked the note in my vest pocket beside the book that once saved my life. Still wincing at every move, I left the restaurant and hailed a cab, giving Quincy's address. Every jolt of the carriage on the cobblestones sent fresh pain shooting through me until it pulled up in front of Quincy's residence.

I forced myself to move casually as I alighted, standing straight in spite of the pain. I knew that I was hanging on to my self-control by a thread, and only prayed that thread would not snap before I reached her. Feeling as if I had traveled a thousand miles that day, I strode quite nonchalantly up the walk to Quincy's house and knocked.

The housekeeper opened the door and at once gestured for me to come inside; I think she had been instructed to watch for me. With relief, I entered, feeling my willpower slipping away as I reached safety. In the foyer, I glanced about dazedly. In one of the booklined rooms stood Katrina. She was safe. _She was safe.  
_

She was standing in the doorway wringing her scabbed hands, staying back from the front door with obvious effort. Her eyes were red, her exquisite lips trembling. Our eyes met, and we whispered each other's names. No sooner was the door shut than she flew to me and threw her arms about me.

My arms reached for her eagerly, but I cried out in pain at her touch. She drew back as if a snake had bitten her, her lovely dark eyes scanning me for a wound.

"Ichabod?" she whispered.

Shaking my head slowly, I reached out. She grasped my hands, studying me anxiously. "I'll be all right, Katrina," I said in the most reassuring tone I could manage, right before blacking out.

I think I was only unconscious long enough for them to carry me to a sofa. I opened my eyes to find her unfastening the buttons of my vest, while David and Quincy supported me in a sitting position. I winced as her fingers slightly pulled the fabric against the skin of my back. She froze.

"Ichabod what happened to you?"

I took her hand, moving it away from my buttons. "You weren't reading my thoughts?"

To my relief she shook her head, her eyes wide and frightened. "I couldn't  you were within the Dark Wards  and then I was afraid to try, afraid that they might be watching for me to use my powers."

"You were quite right to fear so. They no longer want me, my love. They want you, your power just like Hannelore." My voice trailed off. I looked at David, feeling woozy. "You're both safe," I murmured, closing my eyes. "Thank God." I felt so very weary. I slumped against David's supporting arms. I still clasped Katrina's hand, but she caused the buttons of my shirt to unfasten themselves.

"Telekinesis! Remarkable!" Quincy commented, sounding about as surprised as he might have at seeing an out-of-season flower.

She used her telekinesis to lift the vest and shirt off me. David and Quincy lowered me to lie face down on the sofa so that she could see the damage. I had to open my eyes again and turn my head to look at her when I heard her swift intake of breath. Horror spread over her lovely face.

"My God Ichabod, what did they do to you?" She sank to her knees beside the sofa to examine the wounds closely, expert knowledge battling anger and pity on her face. "What were they trying to get from you?"

I hesitated, not eager to tell her that the lurid wounds were inflicted on her account. As it turned out, there was no need; lacking patience for my answer, she eavesdropped on my thoughts, and stared at me, the color draining from her cheeks.

"Ichabod," she whispered. "Oh, God, why didn't you just tell them what they wanted to know? I would never have wished this on you"

"Any man who would betray you under any circumstances does not deserve to be your husband," I declared flatly, momentarily energized. I was angry that she would even suggest I could ever do so, whatever they did to me.

Her warm brown eyes were shining with tears. "No, it is I who am undeserving. Oh, my love, forgive me! If only I had listened to you, stayed away from that market  I swear to you, I will never take such a foolish risk again  how can I make it up to you?"

I could not help it; I started laughing. My back hurt with the motion, so my laughter was mingled with groans, but I could not stop. She fell silent and looked at me anxiously, probably fearing I had shot my bolt at last.

"Ichabod why are you laughing?" she whispered fearfully.

I grinned through the pain. "I have finally discovered what it takes to win an argument with you!"

Her eyes overflowed. She made a movement as if to embrace me, but remembered my wounds in time, and instead sobbed into her own hands. I reached over and caressed her hair, feeling entirely contented. She might weep all she liked, but I had won more than one battle for her safety that day. I had redeemed myself as her protector. The victory was well worth it.

 

*

 

Behind my tears was a grieved rage so fierce that my sobs could find no words to give it voice. Before me, my severely burned husband sat laughing- _laughing_\- and thinking thoughts that revealed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the torture inflicted upon him had resulted in some (hopefully) temporary madness. Torture inflicted on _my_ account. I let my hands slip away from my eyes, clapping them tightly over my mouth. My tears flooded over them, a molten river at last forsaking the carefully tended boundaries of its banks. To this day, I am not certain what alerted me to the fact that Ichabod's trembling hand had moved from my hair to my cheek... that he was leaning forward, shivering with his own pain, pleading with me....

"Katrina, I- I never meant- please don't-"

"_Only if you promise not to put it that way!_" I gasped, feeling as if I had not used my lungs for a very long time. Indeed, his ill-chosen humor had all but caused me to cease breathing. "This... this is no victory, this thing they've done to you! It's a horror, an unspeakable... because of me, but don't you dare think-"

"You know that I _never_ would have betrayed-"

"I wish I had killed them all!" I cried, clenching my fists blindly on Ichabod's knees. "If I had left no survivors, then that wretched courier-"

"I am grateful," Ichabod said reassuringly, visibly contrite over his momentary flippancy as his voice grew paler and paler with the strain, "that you left him to me. Rest assured, he was... dealt what he deserved... as much as I loathe to admit it...."

"Lady Crane, your husband is suffering," Quincy said sharply from somewhere behind me.

Both ashamed and indignant, I rose to my feet, wiping my face with a handkerchief that David thrust quickly into my hands. Ichabod's expression fluctuated unstably between annoyance at Quincy's remark and the urge to faint again. I squared my shoulders, pointing at David.

"Get my bag."

David fetched it quickly from the other room, and once he'd handed it over, Ichabod placed an unsteady hand on his arm before he was out of reach.

"David... the evidence... suggests that you kept out of the way... earlier," Ichabod said with effort. David turned a shade whiter at the mention of what he and I had been through that afternoon. "It was the... bravest thing that you could have done... listening to Katrina... do you know that?"

"I know now, sir," David said thickly, unable to keep his own emotion in check. "I wished then that I'd done more, though."

"You did all that was required of you, and of that I am most proud," Ichabod whispered, taken with a grim shudder in the attempt to string his words together clearly. Shaken, I responded immediately to the desperate tightening of his fingers around my wrist.

"Quincy! Tell Beatrice that I will need two separate pans of water boiled, and that she is to admit David into the kitchen," I ordered, not realizing that I had called our host by his first name any more than I had intended to turn his own unchecked manner upon him. I fell on my knees, tearing the bag open. I searched the sewing box frantically, realizing that what I wanted was not there. Quincy's eyes took a turn for the disbelieving when they fell upon the handkerchief. I tossed it at him in my frenzy.

"Hold that! I know it must be here..."

"Katrina," David whispered urgently, "if it's willow bark for-"

"Pain? No, witch hazel... for an antiseptic..."

"You need both. They're at home in the herb closet."

"Damn! Oh!- I meant-"

"Katrina, just _get them!_" David said through clenched teeth.

"But they're-"

"You're not _thinking-_"

"Never mind!" I cried, never having felt so foolish in my life. I glared at Quincy, who was watching with fascinated amusement. I made a show of holding out my right hand, where two packets of dried herbs appeared. I snatched the handkerchief away without so much as lifting a finger.

"Conjuring... good heavens!" Quincy remarked, showing a trace of astonishment this time.

"No time to applaud," I said rather more coldly than I should have, searching my husband's glazed eyes for signs of more severe shock. I handed the packets to David, who did not hesitate to grab Quincy's hand and drag him toward Beatrice's passing figure in the hall. Ichabod and I were left alone. I felt the box slide out of my lap, but it did not matter. I slid my arms about his neck, drawing his damp forehead to my lips to whisper a prayer of thanks and remorse. Ichabod grasped my hands, crying softly.

"We're a houseful of tempers even here," I said penitently, making note of Ichabod's temperature as my mouth moved on upon his skin. I faltered, "It... was so brave, what you did... in truth, I don't know how you managed to breach Hawke's fortress! If I had known before what I've assimilated from you about the grounds, I would have been-"

"Then all the better... that you did not... for I couldn't have taken seeing you any more beside yourself than- you already are...."

"You'll catch a fever again if you don't listen carefully. Quincy's given us two spare rooms. David was supposed to have the smaller one, but plans are about to change. The larger room is upstairs, too far for you to walk. The small one was used for a servant at one time, but it's here on the first floor. If I support you, can you make it without being carried?"

"Katrina, I r-really don't know... But could... _could you_...?"

I bit my lip, wishing once again that I could do that which was completely out of my league. By the laws of nature encoded in my genes, I did not have the ability to give motion to human beings. I could lift only the inanimate, those things that did not move of their own free will. I told Ichabod as much, and he nodded, quickly understanding that his mother had possessed a rare and unusual variation on the trait.

"I am only human in this matter," I said quietly. "Ichabod, I'll brace your arms; I'll walk backwards if I have to!"

Which I'm sure looked incredibly ridiculous, but by which method we painstakingly reached the small bedroom. Ichabod moaned as I lowered him facedown on the bed.

"So this... this is what I get for- for being absent without leave," he sobbed, his voice muffled in the mattress. I sent his boots flying so forcefully that they hit the wall on the other side of the room. The bag, which had floated in tow behind us, landed obediently in my lap after I had taken a seat beside him.

"The last thing I want you thinking about is work," I said levelly, which was difficult, for I was once again mortified by what I saw. The wounds extended from his shoulder blades to the small of his back. I counted fourteen burns, judging at least five to be second degree or worse. The largest was located on his left shoulder blade. I wondered why in God's name history had to keep repeating itself.

Alarmed by my lengthy silence, Ichabod asked, "I'm... that severely..."

"No. Not as severely hurt as you could be. But severely enough," I said bitterly, unable to disguise my voice any longer. I prodded one small blister that had begun to form. "You'll be... you'll... _Why did it have to be you?_" I whispered helplessly. "You'll scar. I didn't get to these in time."

"What's a few more, really?" Ichabod gasped, turning his face to look up at me. His pain-filled eyes begged me to smile. "What are... a few scars when... I still have my life... and you in it?"

"Terrible things that make your wife want to massacre the men who inflicted them!" I said vehemently, so overwhelmed that I bent and kissed him. As much as I wished to permit myself a stifled laugh to cheer him, I could not. Not until I could treat him properly.

"Mmh, this's-_aaah!_\- an odd-"

"Sh," I whispered, drawing back at the sound of footsteps.

"Angle," David finished for Ichabod, who buried his face back in the coverlet out of sheer embarrassment. I gave David a wistful smile, accepting the cup full of willow-bark tea and directing him to set the bowl full of steeped witch hazel on the bedside table. He retreated as quickly as he had come, musing, "I guess this means I get the upstairs."

"You guess correctly," I sighed even though he was out of earshot. I urged Ichabod to turn his head. "Raise yourself up on your elbows if you can. I don't want to spill this all over the place. You want to drink it all. It's stronger than usual. And," I said with faint surprise, studying the cup's contents more closely, "it looks as if Quincy's added something that lightens it."

Ichabod lifted himself with a groan and stared at the brew. "It's half laudanum.... All the better, really.... Give it..."

I supported Ichabod as best I could, holding the cup to his lips until he'd drained it. Steeling myself, dipped the cloth that David had left into the warm bowl of witch hazel. I stared at the varicolored nightmare of my husband's back, nearly having second thoughts about causing him more anguish.

"What are you going to do with that?" he asked tensely.

"Clean the area," I said flatly. "It... It's going to hurt, love. I can't change that."

"Couldn't hurt as much... as when he did it," Ichabod muttered with a hatred surpassing my own.

"I'll give you a few moments. Rest," I soothed him. "I'll let the willow bark begin to take effect."

"Not that it will matter much," Ichabod sighed. I closed my eyes regretfully. He was right about that. I waited until his breathing was more even, until he seemed calm. I cautiously applied the soaked cloth to the perimeters of one burn, sponging lightly. Ichabod's entire body quivered, but he settled quickly with a muted cry. I proceeded to cleanse the burn more slowly, leaving a kiss on the back of Ichabod's neck, briefly stroking his hair.

Desire for revenge burned my every nerve. I paused, struck by an idea so ridiculously, dangerously foolish that it just might work. Because individual voices are not distinct in thought communication, anyone doing a broad range monitoring- even the demon- would not be able to tell the difference between two run of the mill house witches gossiping and the encoded conversation of two on the run. Besides, Hawke had no idea where to begin when it came to a precise location... at least _my_ location, but all the same, I could not resist. I began with caution.

_Mrs. Keller, I do hope you're in a chatty mood tonight.  
_

_Ka-_

_Ah, ah!_ I warned, shaken that Isobel had almost used my first name.

_For the love of God, are you trying to get yourself-_

_Mrs. Keller, be quiet. The more brief I am, the better... God knows, it's late, and you know how husbands are... Besides, unsuspecting fox hunters don't look for burrows where they don't expect to find them, do they?_

_No_, Isobel replied cautiously, taking my meaning. _I suppose not. But you're still a-  
_

_Now, now, no time to be sore over yesterday_, I fabricated glibly. _Listen, can you... create visions as beautiful as the ones published in the Journal? Try your hand at writing, invent a world... that's so convincing that whoever taps into it would believe the situation?  
_

Isobel drew in her breath, aghast but finally playing along. _I'm not that talented, silly girl! But... perhaps... What on earth are you suggesting?  
_

_Do you remember last week's chapter? When Harold returned from battle... collapsed severely wounded on Gertrude's doorstep? Enchantingly heartbreaking, wasn't it? Enough to tear out your heart?_

_Good... Good Lord... yes..._

_Write something like it, Miss Keller, to amuse me. I know you could! Something that a shameless reader such as ourselves could get lost in. Really feel the agony as if it were their own- ah, the drama of it all!_

_Yes. But I'll need some ideas from you, dear, of course! You're the clever one!_

_You shall have them, my dear. Let's not let quibbles like yesterday's ruin our luncheon again._

_Be c-_

_Be what, dear?_

_Ch-Cheery for your own Harold tonight, you little vixen! If headmistress could see you now-_

_I'm sure she'd be mortified, dear. And knowing how clever you are at parlor puzzles... well, when you finish your charming vignette... meet us... where my lost gems meet the number of gray horses beneath the tree in the road not far from the bridge, I improvised, at the same time trying to concentrate on swabbing a third burn. I smiled deviously. That would leave eleven...._

_You mean to tell me that you two are there at this hour, and doing- you naughty, naughty girl! Always loved it there, you did. Shall I bring Chester?  
_

_By all means! The more the merrier, if you know what I mean_, I added, abashed at how completely scandalous the conversation would sound if indeed anyone was listening.

_Then, I... shall get my pen at once, by your leave. And see you before long, dear. Your lost gems, you say? Clever, clever. I must think of one twice as difficult for you!  
_

I withdrew my thoughts quickly, shocked at how well Isobel had taken my cues once she understood what I was getting at. Ichabod stirred again beneath my touch.

"You're... _mgh!-_ quiet, my love."

I sighed, shaking off the trance. "It takes so much concentration... I'm trying so hard not to hurt you overly much," I reassured him, rubbing his neck gently with my free hand. "Lie still, close your eyes. It will be a while still, but you'll heal all the better for it."

With that, I closed my eyes and emptied my mind, letting it drop and eclipse my husband's. I stiffened as I worked, filled to the brim with his pain, each burning streak of misery distinct despite my lightest touch. And I prayed that Isobel was channeling it accordingly from my securely closed-off mind into the frame of that gargoyle of a hairpin thief who deserved it.

By the time I finished cleansing Ichabod's entire back, I was weary from cleaving to his thoughts. He had closed his eyes, given in to quieter sighs by the time I selected a salve from the sewing box and applied it gingerly to each burn. I turned my thoughts to Isobel, who was surely as worn out as I. I knew that she would not bother to pack. She and Christopher were probably already gone. I had nearly finished the job when the bedroom door opened a sliver.

"I've come to apologize," Quincy announced, watching me smooth the last patch of blistered flesh over with the greenish-clear ointment.

"No need to," I said with grateful reserve. "You were caught up in the urgency of the moment, and I was stunned by it. I probably needed to hear that."

Quincy drew a modest step closer. Ichabod's eyes opened a drowsy slit. He was heavily subdued by the laudanum and would be asleep before long.

"You've made remarkably quick work of the job, and admirably so," Quincy said softly. "I wish Bea had known the things you know when I cut myself on that bone saw," he chuckled, promptly rolling up one sleeve to reveal a jagged dark scar nearly an inch wide running halfway from his elbow to his wrist. My eyes widened, but I refrained from comment and instead offered a nod of agreement. Ichabod promptly squeezed his eyes shut.

Nodding in satisfaction, Quincy replaced his sleeve and gave Ichabod's back one last appraising glance. "Just wanted to be sure... well, you know, not that I didn't trust you.... I just wanted-" Quincy faltered, his features suddenly tired and sick with a worry that I had seen time and time again on my father's face when I'd fallen as a child, or when my mother had been at her worst. My heart softened.

"I am grateful to you. He'll sleep in peace tonight," I said with a smile. Quincy adopted his old cheerfulness again and murmured, "Good, good!"

"Oh," I called after him, rising as I wiped the ointment off my fingers with the cloth. "Tell Beatrice to keep watch... I expect any moment now, well..." I did not know how to tell him that two more guests would appear before the night was over. At least I _hoped_ they would.

"Lady Crane, you are one surprise after another. I shall keep watch myself," Quincy reassured me, and was gone.

"What, Katrina?" Ichabod asked groggily, opening his eyes.

"I told the Magellans to come here, too," I blurted.

Ichabod was too weary to react. "Probably best anyway," he murmured. "My note's lying around their place... and thanks to me... Hawke's soldiers have probably... set up camp in McRaker's Alley."

"At least soldiers can't read minds. Isobel's clever. I know she'll find a way here."

"I would expect nothing less of a witch."

"Good. Because we'll never leave you defenseless," I said firmly. "I'll be back in a moment. How does your back feel?"

"I can't feel the pain as intensely as... before, it's as if... it's disconnected from me somehow, dulled."

"That's exactly how it should be," I responded, relieved. I brushed my husband's hair out of his eyes before seeking Quincy at the front doors. I tapped on his shoulder.

"There will be two of them, brother and sister," I said simply. "They're the owners of the tablet, and dear friends of ours. Tell them that I wish I could greet them, but Ichabod's in still in a bad way, near sleep though he may be. Show them to another room... if you have one, I mean, or just somewhere that they can spend the night in reasonable comfort. Tell them that... I must speak with them early, six in the morning or thereabouts. Isobel will have no difficulty with these conditions, take my word for it."

Quincy just sighed, smiling and shaking his head, oblivious to the madness that had entered his life. "Go back to your husband, Lady Crane. Your friends are spoken for."

I returned to the guest room, pulling the closing the door quietly behind me. Ichabod was still in a half-daze, his eyes trailing the rosette pattern of the fabric pressing against his cheek. He looked up slowly.

"It's taken care of?"

"Absolutely," I reassured him. "I'm going to make you more comfortable. Just lie still."

The laudanum seemed to wear off in the instant I made the coverlet vanish from beneath him and reappear over him, folded down neatly so that it did not touch his back. I conjured one of our own pillows from home and watched his eyes bulge as it materialized beneath his head.

"Next time, define comfortable!" he breathed, somewhat shaken but suddenly more relaxed.

I gave him a weary smile in reply, causing my gown to vanish and a nightgown to take its place. I let my hair down hurriedly, summoning new sets of clothes for the next day as an afterthought.

"If I had known how useful your abilities could be, I would never have reacted to them the way I did," Ichabod said softly, his speech calm and even once again.

"Yes you _would_ have," I teased, yawning, lifting the covers carefully. I surveyed the situation a moment before slipping into bed beside him, carefully sliding one arm beneath him and about his waist. Ichabod's breath quickened at the shift, but somehow I ended up cradling him so that his head rested upon my chest, the lengths of our bodies touching.

"I thought that I would never hold you again," he whispered.

"I wouldn't let myself lose faith that I would!" I said, tracing the trail of his tears with my fingertips. I pulled the sheet gently over his back, pressing my lips to his closed eyes. He trembled as if some dark vision would not flee from before him.

"I saw the strangest things today, Katrina. The strangest, most terrible things."

"Tell me."

"For one, Hawke's torture chamber," Ichabod murmured distantly. "The man has _everything,_ Katrina. Everything that I wish to see torn bolt from blade and put out of use indefinitely!"

"Thank God... none of those things were used on you," I sighed, refraining narrowly from using Purnell's name.

"That's not even half of it. The man has soldiers, Katrina. Perhaps a veritable small army. That courier was one of them."

"You killed him," I said, more a statement than question. "And another man's probably dying of a severe head wound that I gave him."

"Jess? No, he's alive."

"You mean-"

"The courier mentioned him by name."

I sighed heavily. I was relieved, in some strange way, but I was curious. I asked Ichabod, "What would you have thought? I mean, if Jess had died?"

"That you did what you had to do. Because I know that you could never kill. I should _hope_ that you could never kill intentionally."

"When I saw what they did to you," I whispered, "I think I could have."

"Certain loved ones will have that effect, will they not?" Ichabod replied gently. "Don't think of it again. I know your heart. You let them live. Leave the worst to someone else."

"And look what happened when I did," I quavered.

"Katrina... hush."

"So, there's an army and a torture chamber involved in Hawke's coup"

"And one very drugged canine," Ichabod cut in dully.

The phrase hit me like well-aimed bullet. "A drugged _what?_"

"They're completely out of their minds. I saw Colonel Dorn's dog, Cerberus, caged and well-fed on meat laced with some kind of sedative. They had a wreath of flowers around his neck. It might as well be April Fool's Day-"

"_He_ _can't be!_" I cried. Fear's familiar icy hands grasped my heart.

"Drugged? As surely as I'm burned, he is-"

"No. You have no idea what trouble we're in," I gasped.

"Katrina?"

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Horrors such as this one ranked beside my stepmother's dark spell-work. I explained, "I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, when Quincy explained that this kind of demon's power mounts as it's used. Cerberus is drugged for a reason. Tomorrow is April 30th... Walpurgisnacht, Ichabod. Walpurgis Night. On that night above all nights of the year... Black Magic can be worked with the greatest of ease and the highest efficacy... which means..."

Ichabod stared at me as if once again he barely knew me. His expression quickly changed, however, from shocked terror to complete trust. "Which means what, Katrina?"

"Hawke will use the demon to carry out the final stage of his plot. Everything else is in readiness, as you described to me: his army, his supporters, his funding, his method of punishment for disloyal subjects. Ichabod, the sacrifice of a hound is required in the Plague Spell. They will kill Cerberus upon an altar of stone with a silver dagger, and the proper incantations will be made. On May 1st," I said slowly, "if my guess is correct, the United States Government will cease to exist."

"_Cease to-!_"

"President Adams... his cabinet... Congress... all state Governors who refused to show any signs of agreement with items planted by Hawke's network of spies... will be dead before the Beltane sunrise. Unless we free the demon," I said bleakly, "_and_ successfully thwart the ceremony. That dog's blood must not be spilt by Hawke's dagger."

Ichabod closed his eyes in pained, weary defeat. He tried his best to stave off tears, but they would not be silenced.

"It's too much to ask of anyone! Freeing the demon seemed well within our grasp, but this... has become some... Herculean task unfit for a man who can barely stand- _aaah!"  
_

"My love, in the name of all that is sacred, _stop!_" I pleaded, but to no avail. His pain seemed to return with each sob, his every breath a new burn. I held him as still as I could, wishing that I could put his mind back where it belonged. I blurted desperately, "What... What else did you notice as you fled? Ichabod, think! Hawke's property- were there any unusual structures, any-"

"Only a hedge row so high that I couldn't have seen into the back courtyard if I had wanted to," Ichabod moaned. "It's completely-"

"No, it's not. That hedge row is the answer. Where else would he conceal a pagan ritual? I can tell you what you would have seen on the other side of that hedge. At least what _should_ be there."

"How do you know this?" Ichabod whispered numbly.

"Witch mothers make a point of teaching their children what lies on the other side of the line between daylight and shadow. How are we to defend ourselves against evil magic if we do not know how it is worked?"

"You mean that you're as capable of black magic as your stepmother was?"

"Every witch is. Some, unfortunately, choose the darkness. As with all things in life, the path branches somewhere. My stepmother made a grievous error, as have Hawke and Purnell. As for me, I will use what knowledge I have to decide what must be done," I said with renewed determination.

"Know our enemy," Ichabod mumbled into my nightgown.

"Precisely. Please, dear, case these tears and sleep," I soothed him, caging the panic in my unquiet heart. "_I will never leave you defenseless._"

I kissed his forehead and murmured words that I had never dreamed I knew, as if they were given to me from one who had known his fragile soul since birth. And with a flush of certainty as he drifted reluctantly off, clinging to me, I knew that if I had been wearing Isobel's pendant, I would have seen the woman from the stairs bent close and whispering in my ear.

I must have fallen asleep soon after. I was awakened at some indeterminate hour by the sound of footsteps in the hall. I lifted my head cautiously, lest I wake Ichabod. My heart skipped a beat when the door slid open noiselessly. A candle clasped by a pale slip of a hand appeared. Isobel's blanched countenance hovered above it.

I whispered, barely breathing, "I knew you would make it!" She had solved my riddle. _Where my lost gems meet the number of gray horses beneath the tree in the road not far from the bridge. _The number of my dead parents, the number of horses named Gunpowder. Twenty-one Tulip Tree Lane. Quincy's address had made me smile the first time I'd pronounced it. A tongue twister, and charming in its ridiculousness.

"I found him," Isobel mouthed, bringing the candle close to her lips. Her eyes glowed with an eerie blue murkiness. I noted that her hair was wild again, undone over her shoulders. "Purnell let down his guard, Katrina... just as you predicted he would. He was using the demon, too, as you had anticipated, to keep an eye on our flat. He assumes he caught me channeling some poor soul who had survived a fire... and not made it past one night... for a client. He got a nasty surprise while he was at it. He'll be sore for hours," Isobel added with a grim smile, momentarily lowering the candle to cast a faint light on Ichabod's reddened shoulders. "Lord," she breathed, "I cannot imagine what the rest of it must look like. With Rishkha's help, I pinned the delusion on him, cut off my own source, and ran. Christopher was indignant, but he followed. He is here."

"Has... Quincy taken care of you?"

"Yes, not fifteen minutes ago. We've rooms on either side of David's. Katrina, he's a strange old man, but very kind. How did your husband find him? How-" Isobel bit her lip, tears draining the cloudy glow from her eyes. "How did he ever manage such a beautiful interpretation as this?" she faltered, raising her left hand in the firelight to reveal the roll of paper securely rasped in it. "Shall I read it, then? End it all tonight, here and now? Katrina, I am so weary of this."

"I'm afraid... that I must ask you to wait. Just one more night... Isobel," I whispered urgently, "Ichabod saw... some disturbing things at the Hawke mansion. Freeing the demon is no longer our only task." I held her gaze, hoping she would understand.

Isobel said one trembling word. "_Walpurgisnacht!"  
_

"I believe the ceremony will be held-" I began, my throat beginning to feel raw from the whisper, when suddenly Ichabod stirred. I froze.

_Isobel, tonight has worn us too thin. What I have to say must wait until morning. Wake yourself-  
_

Quincy has told me, sister. Fear not, and be quiet, as I could not tell you to do so earlier. Katrina, God help me, but I've grown to love your foolishness! Sleep well, the two of you. Six o'clock in the study. Christopher and I will be there.

"The more the merrier indeed!" Isobel whispered aloud, smiling sadly. "You're brilliant, you know." And she was gone, closing the door as soundlessly as she had upon her arrival.

My eyes fell shut with the weight of love and apprehension too great to bear, dragging me into the depths of sleep. Unlike Ichabod's, my rest was not dreamless. I wandered dark spells and hedges until, with the first light of dawn, I knew exactly what had to be done.

I opened my eyes to find the room flooded in ethereal semidarkness. I searched the walls and spotted a small clock hung in one corner. _Five thirty AM. _I touched Ichabod's hand lightly where it lay tangled in my hair.

"Ichabod," I whispered, "wake up, love... ah, be still!"

I steadied him as he woke with a start, groaning faintly. He tried to get up but fell back, gasping.

"It's... worn off," he whimpered.

"Yes, that's to be expected," I said gently. "I'll make some more, but you'll have to let me up. We have but half an hour until we meet the Magellans in Quincy's study."

"They arrived?"

"Yes. I heard them come in the night. I left a message for them with Quincy. All is well."

"I would that it were," Ichabod cried, crawling to the edge of the bed stiffly. He sat there taking deep, ragged breaths. I sat beside him for a few moments, clasping him about the waist and kissing him lightly. He leaned despite the pain, his arms desperately tight around me.

"Can you make something strong that won't make me fall asleep?"

"Yes. Though I'll have to summon something more from home."

"Summon it from Africa if you have to.... Just _get _it," Ichabod begged.

Leaving him to lie helpless on the bed, I groped my way in the direction of the kitchen. The wooden floor was dry and unfamiliar beneath my bare feet. I crept into Beatrice's domain, finding two pots still sitting on the stove. One was half full of water. I searched the counters and cupboards for something with which to light the stove, but to no avail. The hearth, too, was cold. I stood in front of the stove feeling as helpless as Ichabod.

"Why can I not summon a fire as easily as I can summon a remedy?" I lamented angrily. Just then, the kitchen went warm with a frightful gust of wind. I jumped back as a crackling fire appeared in the stove. I heard a step, giving a yell as I whirled to face its source. Isobel stood in the kitchen doorway, her eyes shining calmly as if wet with tears. She held out something wrapped in a curiously embroidered scrap of cerulean silk.

"I don't know what it is, Katrina," Isobel said simply, "but she left it for you."

"She left...?" I whispered, taking the tiny parcel in my unsteady hands. "_Who?_"

"Your mother-in-law," Isobel said matter-of-factly. "Johanna. She did that, too," Isobel informed me, pointing at the stove.

I nodded mutely, dazed by Isobel's nonchalance. I wondered vaguely what Quincy would think if he knew there had been a ghost capable of setting the place ablaze under his roof.

"Isobel, how did she-"

"Even I don't know that. Open it," she urged me curiously, pointing at Johanna's offering. "I want to know what it is."

"You mean- You mean she just _handed_ it to you?"

"Yes and no. I was awakened by a pair of hands- hands that I could not see- shaking me. No panic there, not the first time that's happened... but... I caught a glimpse of her when that fell right on top of me right out of nowhere. That warm wind you felt blew the covers right off of me. I dashed after it... and it led me to you, here. It started the fire."

I was too shocked to comment. I unwrapped the scrap of silk and found a handful of an unfamiliar bark nestled in the folds of material. "What _is_ this? I can't... I've never seen... Isobel! I don't know what this is!"

"My guess is you should put it in the water. It'll be boiling soon. That fire's fierce!"

I deposited the bark shreds into the water. "You don't know what it is, either?" I asked incredulously. "You, the medium?"

"You're the healer, not I!" Isobel said with a smile. She peered into the pot, marking with the same measure of awe as I that the pot had begun to bubble industriously when the bark hit its surface. I looked down at the ragged scrap of silk in my hand. The embroidery was done in a darker shade of blue, but I could not tell what pattern it formed. I shook out the square and flattened it on the counter, squinting at it in the faint light. The shape slowly resolved itself into something almost recognizable. I gasped.

"Isobel, look!"

She stepped close. "A reindeer," she breathed. "That stitch is exquisite. You can just make out the head- there, antlers... a delicate head sloping into the neck." Her fingers followed the line of embroidery to the edge of the material, which was ragged, as if it had been torn or very poorly cut from its source. Isobel's eyes narrowed as she picked it up to examine something more closely.

"Have I missed something?" I asked. I felt the urge to snatch it from her and take a closer look myself.

"No. My guess is that you know what I do not about _this_," Isobel said reverently, indicating a ragged patch that was still doubled upon itself and held in place by a hem stitch. She flipped it over, revealing a faint cast on the fabric, a reddish spray.

"I do," I whispered, my mind swept back in time to a bedside vigil, a confession of memories that had come unbidden and bled through scarred hands. I crushed the silk against my breast, bowing my head. "This... must have come from the hem of her dress..." I struggled to say, my eyes filling. "She..."

Suddenly, I felt Isobel's hands brush my hair, slip something cool and familiar around my neck so that it touched its counterpart. My mind was torn from a white-walled rectory into a room of iron spikes in the swirl of a black cloak and the creak of a red door, a crimson tide washing over me-

"_Aaaaaah!_"

I thrust off Isobel's pendant, thrusting it at her wildly. "_She died wearing-!_"

"Katrina, _shhh_," Isobel comforted me, bending to retrieve her pendant and the scrap of silk. "It's her gift to you, her recognition of you as family. Your blood is hers," she whispered, indicating the barely noticeable stain. "Keep it with that handkerchief of yours. I can't say what can be done with such things, but I do know that they're the most powerful bindings in existence.

"Yes," I said, blinking to rid myself of tears. "You do not want to know what can be done with them. Unless you absolutely must, which is another matter entirely."

Isobel looked at me fearfully, her eyes asking what she dared not voice. I set the cloth on the counter and stirred the bark, preparing to drain it. With a sigh, I gave in to her query as I prepared the mystery tisane for Ichabod.

"They're... contracts, if you will," I said reticently. "Left behind only rarely, and even more rarely if left intentionally. When- I am dead, someday," I said as straightforwardly as I could, "that handkerchief must be buried with me. Although I could choose for it not to be. I could choose for it to be left with a member of the family. You see, if someone were to burn it... I would be... _called on_. I believe the tradition was one begun as a way for us to ensure that our families would have us in a time of danger... but... anymore, if it were to fall into hands of malicious intent, well... I would be as good as Jürgen until the ashes are scattered to the north wind."

Isobel's swallowed. "Katrina, you _do_ realize why Johanna chose to leave that, then?" she asked fearfully, not even certain herself. "Because according to what you said, you are the owner of both rare instances of the leaving of such a thing."

I had just finished straining the remedy into a teacup. I froze, staring at the scrap of silk, longing to ask it questions to which it could never give me answers. I closed my eyes, realizing what had been done... and why Johanna had come.

"She anticipates, Isobel, that we'll need her help tonight. And if worse comes to worse, we will."

"Will you show Ichabod? Will he understand- I mean, not to be inconsiderate, Katrina, but can he _take_ it?"

"In his current state, I honestly can't say. But I have the feeling Johanna's taken care of that," I said, indicating the teacup. "If you see her, will you ask her what it is?" I mused weakly. "Wake your brother and get to the study. I'll settle this matter with Ichabod as best I can before we meet. We'll see you in fifteen minutes."

Isobel and I parted ways, leaving the kitchen sealed in tense silence. I tucked the square of silk into my nightgown as I made my way down the hall, a few drops of tea narrowly missing it. Curious, I sucked a drop from my splashed finger. The taste was neither sweet nor entirely unpleasant.

I found Ichabod sitting up again, leaning with his head against the bedpost. I held the teacup to his lips. I could not think of anything to say. I did not know how to tell him that I had no idea what I was administering.

Ichabod's eyebrows furrowed as he drank it down. Once finished, he sat the teacup on a pillow and raised a finger to my cheek, his pained eyes filling with concern.

"I heard you... talking with someone," he faltered. "I heard you scream."

I nodded gravely, taking a seat beside him. I began hesitantly, taking his hand in mine.

"Yes, you did. I'm not sure how to tell you, but I suppose that straight out is as good a way as any. I couldn't find a way to light the kitchen stove, and suddenly... a warm breeze blew in and lit it for me. I turned and saw Isobel standing in the doorway. She had followed the gust.... It led her to me. Isobel gave me... this," I said quietly, drawing the scrap of silk out of my sleeve. "It was full of some kind of bark... a kind that I did not recognize, Ichabod. It's what I gave you," I finished, pressing the scrap gently into his hand. "What she knew would help you most."

Ichabod's recognition was instant, as if he were once again in that terrible nightmare. He grasped my shoulders, breathing hard.

"How long as she been in the house?" he asked unsteadily. "Did Isobel say why she came?"

"Not exactly, but to help us, I believe. I think that she was here last night. I could feel something."

"She lit the stove," Ichabod whispered with feeling. "I remember her, in front of the fire... how she produced sparks from forget-me-nots, drew spirals in the ash while she sang... but I never saw her do such a thing. Never. Can you?" he asked breathlessly.

"If I could, I would have done it myself," I said with a smile, taking him in my arms at last. "She left the material... I think... for a reason that I think you'll be shocked by, but... she's offering her help, Ichabod, for tonight. For what I'm about to tell all of you in the study. If... if something should go awry... burn that scrap. It'll allow her to do something that under ordinary circumstances her spirit could not. And that's what's frightening... I can't tell you exactly what that might be. In dangerous circumstances, dangerous measures may be required. She will not leave you defenseless, either."

Ichabod looked up, swiftly making the connection. "Does that mean... someday... that handkerchief?"

"Don't dwell on it, but, yes. I'll explain the matter later; it can be dealt with in such a way that nothing is left behind. But the fact that what you're now holding's been offered from beyond the grave... we must only hope that things don't go _that_ awry."

Ichabod kissed the side of my head. "I wish you had known her!" he murmured tearfully.

"Hush, love," I calmed him. "Part of me feels as if I already do. Come, we've got to meet the twins. I pray that you can walk." I summoned one of his winter robes from home and carefully wrapped him in it.

"For you, I can do anything," Ichabod said, summoning his courage against the pain.

I filed the blue material in the sewing box before helping Ichabod across the foyer and into the study. Two fair heads flew up in unison. A red-eyed Christopher looked as if he wished the whole thing were a bad dream. His shirt was creased and untucked, and his usually neat short hair had adopted David's rumpled look. Isobel sat across from him, still and composed in her lily-pale gown. Her eyes sought Ichabod's. He returned her concerned gaze with one of thankfulness. Ichabod and I took seats on the couch. Christopher broke the silence rather peevishly.

"Isobel tells me this has become nothing short of a circus."

"Not in those terms, Chris," she reprimanded him, "so kindly reserve your judgment until Katrina proposes what we should do. Unless you have a better idea."

Put in his place, Christopher lowered his eyes and drew in his breath impatiently. "Look," he said wearily, "I'm just tired. So _tired_. I want it to be over. I wanted it to be over ages ago. I'm sick of worrying about my sister, and I'm sick of worrying about... what's to become of us. _All_ of us."

Every time Christopher seemed intent upon making things difficult, he never failed to redeem his ill-spoken words, however gracelessly. Ichabod shot me an amused sidelong glance, giving me heart. If he could smile again, then I could face a wavering critic without feeling that my night of feverish planning had been done in vain.

"I'll be extremely brief," I said, looking both twins in the eyes. "Hawke is planning a _Walpurgisnacht_ ritual in order to work the Plague Spell. He'll use the demon to carry it once it's worked. If my guess is correct, every key member of the Government will be dead before dawn tomorrow."

I had Christopher's full attention, but Isobel showed enough horror for the two of them.

"The Plague! I thought it was a legend... or should I say, _hoped_ it was. You must have seen the altar, Constable Crane," she said in a trembling voice.

"No," Ichabod replied. "The hound. Drugged with a wreath about his neck, ready for the dagger."

"We can't let it die by that blade!" Isobel cried.

I breathed in relief. "Exactly. Ichabod and I know the location of Hawke's mansion. Its back courtyard is large, fenced in by a hedge row at least nine feet high. I believe that is where the ritual will take place. We have to stop the ritual and free the demon for the most part simultaneously, or at least in quick succession. It'll take the efforts of all four of us. What I'm proposing is sketchy at best. We'll have to find a way to sneak onto the property and conceal ourselves. The ritual will begin around eleven-thirty and reach its conclusion precisely at midnight."

"Impossible," Christopher moaned.

"Not if you would listen!" Isobel said sharply.

"I can devise a way to do so," Ichabod said confidently. I was amazed at the difference in him. Johanna's remedy for pain must have been an incredibly well-kept secret.

"To sneak onto the property?" Christopher asked.

"Yes. I escaped from that very house last night. It's a penetrable fortress, if one knows where to look," Ichabod told him with slight impatience.

"Very well, then... what I know is this: while Isobel reads the inscription, one of us will have to find a way through the hedge," I said, glancing meaningfully at Ichabod and hoping that he would be up to it, "in order to shoot Cerberus. If the dog takes a bullet, their plans are ruined. The blood can only be drawn by pure silver."

"I will," Christopher volunteered, his eyes glowing angrily. "I want a chance at the bastard who took our-"

"Are you blind, or is it truly not clear who she intended for the job?" Ichabod cut in.

"Sorry," Christopher mumbled.

"Someone will have to stand guard, keep track of everyone else's locations. I plan on filling that post. I can track the three of you if we should become untimely separated, as well as intercept any unwelcome visitors." By then, I knew, using my powers within the Dark Wards would not matter. They would be too preoccupied with the ritual to be concerned with my whereabouts. I hoped. Even if they did detect me, the job would be in progress or done. _I hoped_.

"Katrina, you and Isobel should stay together at all times. And you, Christopher, are not to be far from them at any given time, is that clear?" Ichabod stated. "You'll be armed, all three of you, but if shots must be fired, I prefer that they be fired by the young man."

"Yessir," Christopher sighed, glaring at Ichabod and his sister by turns.

"I suppose that covers it," I said, feeling the incompleteness of our plan like a pain. I could refine nothing until Ichabod came up with a course of entry. He would have all day to do so as he rested, but I still feared the use of a tiny blue weapon would be necessary.

"What about Hawke and Purnell?" Isobel asked suddenly. "They'll be conducting the ritual, no doubt. They'll... need to be taken care of."

"Christopher," Ichabod said slowly, "this leaves an possibility open that I very much hope you can handle. You will have to wound Hawke if Katrina is not there to bind him."

I looked at Ichabod questioningly, amazed at how swiftly he had commandeered the situation. He said, "You're taking some rope. Use your telekinesis to bind him. Death is too good for that him. I have other plans. But if that fails, I expect Christopher not to miss his mark"

"And Purnell?" Isobel persisted. "The conduct of the magic will be in his hands."

"I have other plans for him, too," Ichabod said stiffly. "You needn't worry about anything save freeing that demon, Miss Magellan."

"Soldiers, guards," Christopher chimed in, as if he had been thinking for a while. "What about them?"

"I don't think there will be many within the hedge, actually, if any at all," I ventured. "The ritual is sacred to those who perform it, no matter how dark their intent. Uninvolved bystanders of any kind are taboo."

"We have approximately seventeen hours until the ritual begins," Ichabod said quietly. "Time has never mattered more than now. We shall either succeed or die trying."

He grasped my hand tenderly. Only then did I realize how much more we stood to lose than we had in Sleepy Hollow: our second chance. I wondered if there was any such thing as a third chance, and if so...

_Was it our last?  
_

At the creak of a floorboard, the four of us looked up from our moment of silence.

"What about me?" David asked, yawning as he stood in the doorway.

 

*

 

I looked David in the eye. "There is something very important that I need you to do. You are going to eliminate a tremendous load of worry from my mind."

The brief excitement left David's face as he understood. "No!" he protested.

"Yes. You are staying here."

"I can't! Not with you and Katrina facing God knows what!"

"David, I need you to take care of those papers if anything"

"If anything happens to you, you won't be able to stop this ritual, and then Senator Remington will be dead, and so will anyone else who could help. There's no reason to keep me home!"

I shook my head. "I cannot help but wish that you were not so brave, David. Proud as it makes me." Suddenly I realized the most important reason that I had taken him in after his father's death; I was not going to stand by and see another bereaved boy forced to live his entire life in fear. I was going to see to it that his natural courage was protected, not destroyed as mine was.

"You didn't argue when I was the only one who was willing to go to the western woods, so why"

"Because I thought it was your right to help avenge your father," I retorted. I admitted to myself that I had very much not wanted to go into those woods alone, a mere day after discovering that ghosts indeed existed. But had his reasons been less compelling, I would have done it. Thank God I had not had to. "This is our problem. I admire your courage, David, deeply, but we need you to"

Katrina tried another tack. "We need you to remain safe. Please, David, how can we go on if we are worried about you?"

He looked at me imploringly. "Didn't I prove that I can be useful in Sleepy Hollow?"

"Indeed you did. But you should not have to. You're a brave boy. I intend to see you grow up into a brave man. Which means keeping you out of danger till then!"

Reluctantly, David ceased arguing. He sat down discontentedly. I returned to our plan.

"If nonparticipants are verboten, then I suspect that the only people in the ceremony will be Hawke's foremost conspirators. That means Colonel Dorn, Simon Magus"

"Who?" Christopher interrupted.

"Oh." I felt my face harden. "Apparently Simon Purnell likes to style himself after the Biblical wizard Simon Magus. They were calling him that yesterday."

All three of the witches before me rolled their eyes. "What do you expect from a quack like that?" Christopher asked of no one in particular.

"It is possible that the Reverend Burris and Senator Trevayne may also be present. And of course, Hawke may have another conspirator I am not aware of, though I doubt it; if there were another, I would have found some trace of him. So once I stop the ceremony, we will only have a few culprits to contend with. We will take them into custody, and then you, Miss Magellan, will read the translation." My brows drew together. "What will the demon do once we have freed it?" I asked abruptly.

"Return to its own realm," Isobel replied.

"Maybe stopping long enough to kill the one who bound it," Christopher added.

Katrina shook her head. "Purnell wears the sigil."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll forget it tomorrow," Christopher grumbled.

My beloved smiled mirthlessly. "I doubt that. He had it tattooed on."

"Clever," the lad admitted.

"Wait a minute," I said. "What is this sigil?"

"It is worn by those reckless enough to raise demons, to defend them from their own servants," Katrina explained. "It is usually an amulet worn around the neck, but in your mind I saw Purnell's tattoo. It is the protective sigil, and it cannot be removed."

"Indeed." I felt my brows drawing together again as I considered. "Now, as to how we can gain entry to the mansion."

"Who put you in charge?" Christopher grumbled.

"Need I remind you that I am the only qualified professional here?" I retorted.

I think Christopher was about to make a sarcastic reply, but Isobel smoothly interrupted. "How do you plan for us to get in, Constable Crane?"

"I can think of a few possibilities already, but I must think them through. Let me think about it for a bit, and then we will gather again to work out the rest of our plan." With that, I turned and went into one of the other booklined rooms, settling at the desk. Katrina followed me. I glanced around.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Blank paper to take notes on. Or  if I promise not to faint this time, could you get my ledger for me?"

She looked at me in surprise. I was a bit surprised myself; I have never joked about my own weaknesses before. Generally I prefer not to grant them the respect of acknowledging their existence.

An instant later, my ledger was on the desk beside me, even open to the first clean page. I smiled at her.

"I've got a kiss for the Pickety Witch," I said softly. Returning my smile, she moved into my arms to claim it.

"I'll leave you to your thoughts until breakfast is ready. And I warn you, you are going to eat every bite!"

"I'll eat something," I promised as I bent over the ledger. A few minutes later, as I sketched what I knew of the layout of the grounds of the mansion, I heard the murmur of the voices of Katrina, Isobel and Bea in the kitchen.

The fabric of my robe irritated my burns. The pain was not gone, but it was certainly dulled, and whatever potion my my mother had delivered for me had given me energy and confidence. I did not know what the bark was, but I remembered being given it as a child, when I was hurt.

Trying to push away the memories that threatened to overwhelm me, I untied my robe and let it fall over the back of the chair. I continued to write, sitting in my trousers and boots, barechested. This kind of informality is hardly my habit, but I did not think that anyone other than Katrina would disturb me. And by the time Christopher knocked and entered the room, I was so absorbed in working out alternate plans of entry that I had forgotten what I was wearing.

I looked up, turning in my chair as Christopher came to stand beside the desk.

"I know we haven't gotten on," he began stiffly. "After all, you were inconsiderate to my sister on more than one occasion  I know, you didn't mean to be. But this is important and you'd better listen. The the way the girls said you were hurt you can't possibly be fit to do this tonight. You must be on the verge of collapse. I'll shoot the hound tonight."

At least he was being tactful enough to cite my wounds as the reason for his doubt of me. "So while you shoot the dog, I will guard your sister? Is that what you are proposing?"

That stopped him. His eyes flickered, and he parted his lips to speak but then closed them again.

I pressed my advantage by continuing. "Of the four of us, Miss Magellan is the least able to defend herself physically. It may have occurred to you, if Simon Purnell knows about your sister, or learns about her." I did not have to finish; the young man's expression proved that he had indeed considered this possibility.

"That pretender is apt to try to gather himself a harem of witches!" he snarled hatefully.

"I would not put it past him. Though it seems to me a foolish idea. I have difficulty enough with just one. So I naturally assumed that you would wish to be the one guarding your sister, as well as my wife. But, if you truly prefer." With that I turned to put my pen down on the blotter.

When I turned back to him, Christopher's eyes were wide with incredulity. He stared at me.

"Iso said they were  but I didn't think" Words failing him, he stepped behind the chair to examine the burns across my back again. I sighed and allowed him to gawk.

"They were trying to make you to tell them how to get Lady Crane?" he asked. I nodded. "How much did you tell them?"

I turned to look at him, surprised. "Nothing."

His eyes bulged. _"Nothing?"  
_

"Well, I think I did mention that I would prefer it if they stopped burning me," I amended caustically.

"You didn't tell them _anything_ about her?" he repeated. "While they were doing _that_?"

"Mr. Magellan," I said wearily, "people do what they must. Not what is natural to them."

He looked as though he had just received a revelation. I found myself newly appreciating David's greater maturity.

"How did you get here like that?" he asked, still shocked.

"You would be surprised what you can do when you have no choice," I said drily. "And as long as we are talking, you are not going to swear in the presence of my wife again."

The sudden change of subject took him aback. "She didn't seem to mind," he mumbled sheepishly.

I stood up, ignoring the sharp twinges that coursed over my back, and looked him coldly in the eye. "_I_ mind."

He stared at me, more surprised than ever, before dropping his eyes. "Right. Er, sorry."

I sat back down with an air of dismissing him. "Thank you for your offer, but I will be quite ready to stop this ceremony and shoot that hound tonight. We need you to guard the ladies." And it would help immeasurably, I thought, if some of that tea were still left. This thought prompted a chain of speculation. Christopher was heading reluctantly to the door when my question stopped him. "Are the spirits of the dead around us always?" I asked.

"Why, yes. We see them all the time. Well, especially Iso."

"But I meant, isn't there a Heaven or Hell for them to go to? Or do they simply loiter about the world?"

He snickered. "The thing is, once they go to the next world, they can't come back. Except in very special circumstances. So a good many spirits linger for a few months or even a year, but when they see their families going on with life without them, they depart. It's frustrating for them, you see. They can't communicate except through a medium, and they can't do anything, so I suppose they get bored."

"They can't do things in this world?"

"Not usually. They can't normally interfere with mortal lives."

"Normally? What about abnormally?"

He sighed, a bit impatient, but answered my questions as if he were explaining the most elementary facts to a child. "Well, a sufficiently powerful spell can bring a spirit back on command and perhaps allow it to do things. Like a blood contract, for instance  I think Lady Crane explained that to you. You'd better make sure that bloody handkerchief is buried with her. Er, I mean, when  when you're old and"

"I understand. Go on about spirits interfering?"

"Oh. Well, they usually can't, all they can do is watch, but there is an exception. Twenty years after their deaths, if they've remained on this plane, they are allowed to take action for one year, to set things right or whatever. But it's rare for a spirit to do that; usually by that time everything they cared about is gone or changed, and they generally cross over long before the twenty years is up  they need some fairly powerful reasons for hanging around that long. Iso told me about that Headless Horseman. My bet is that the witch waited till he had been dead for twenty years before raising him. It would have been tremendously difficult otherwise  are your burns hurting again?"

"No," I whispered.

"Er, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought up the Horseman, I guess  Iso told me that he nearly killed you, and Lady Crane, more than once"

"It wasn't that. My burns are hurting again," I muttered, too stunned to realize I had contradicted myself. The previous November had been the twenty years' anniversary of my mother's death. It must have been only a few days after that tragic anniversary that I was sent to Sleepy Hollow, to face the supernatural and to find my destiny, my true love. And the year was not over yet. I stood and paced, ignoring the ache in my back, which thankfully was still dull; when I had wakened that morning, the pain had been so intense it had been all I could do to refrain from screaming.

"How how long has Levi Crane been dead?" he asked hesitantly.

I inhaled sharply. "Crane was not my father's name."

"What?"

"Crane was my mother's maiden name. When I ran away, I adopted it, in hopes it would help me hide if my father was looking for me." Besides, I had not wanted to claim kinship with him. "And I have no idea how long he has been dead. I have not seen him since I was fourteen."

"I I see." Awkwardly, Christopher moved back toward the door. "I'm sorry I disturbed you. I'll leave you to your deduction."

Christopher left me and I continued pacing. I needed some air. I carefully pulled my robe back on and found the door to the backyard.

I drew a few breaths, enjoying the pleasant warmth of the spring day. A high fence surrounded the yard; a few oaks granted shade, and there was a small herb garden in one corner, rather similar to Katrina's. I looked up at the branches spreading above me, and the sky above them. In spite of the approaching perils and the night's desperate mission, I felt for the moment quite content, that all was well with the world. I had not felt that way since childhood, not until my wedding night.

_Was she here even now?  
_

I would probably be asking myself that question constantly from now on, I realized as I blinked away tears. If Christopher's words were true, she must have been with me, watching me, ever since her death. For twenty years she had waited, helpless to aid me in my childhood misery, waiting until she would have the chance to help me again. And then she had, I felt certain, drawn me toward the one great blessing of my life, the kind and lovely woman who needed me as much as I needed her. Had she even guided the Pickety Witch's blindfolded steps in my direction? And I, undutiful son, had nearly botched this priceless gift.

"Thank you," I whispered, not knowing if anyone were even present to hear. I had to swallow tears. But I had no leisure to weep, not now.

My musings were interrupted by a flash of crimson. I turned to view the cardinal, a rather large one. He sang urgently, trumpeting his presence to all. I smiled as I watched the little braggart. And after a moment, he was joined by another. A smaller cardinal of muddy pink, a female, who promptly entered into competition with his song. They argued tunefully for a moment before taking wing, and as they did a flash of rosy brown caught my eye. Slowly, I walked beneath the branch where they had been and stooped. On the ground was a feather, brown-grey, faintly tinged with pink. I picked up the feather, studying it thoughtfully, wondering.

I stood gazing at it for some time before going back inside.

A few minutes later, I was bent over my ledger again, jotting notes as I worked out various possibilities. Hawke had wanted me to escape yesterday; getting back in would not be so easy. Even though Katrina assured me that uninvolved bystanders were taboo, I felt certain that soldiers would be patrolling the wrought-iron fence. Hawke would take no chances of having his nefarious work interrupted. We had to find a way through the soldiers. Stealth seemed wiser than force, but how.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sharp gasp behind me. Turning, I saw Isobel standing in the doorway, her face horrified. I had removed my robe again, and she had seen my burns.

I smiled and spoke lightly. "I am glad these are where I cannot see them. Everyone seems to think they look fairly dreadful. Katrina wouldn't have a prayer of getting me to eat breakfast if I could see them."

"It must have been agony," Isobel whispered.

I felt the smile dissolving from my face. "Having Katrina fall into the clutches of those vermin would have been far more agonizing."

Isobel drew a breath. "I Katrina is up to her elbows in flour and milk. She sent me to tell you to come to breakfast."

"Ask her if she would mind bringing it to me in here," I replied. "Oh, and I did not have a chance earlier to thank you. For understanding my note, and responding so cleverly."

"I am grateful I was able to help the three of you." Isobel moved to leave, but then paused. "Constable Crane may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

She parted her lips, then hesitated. "Perhaps I had better not. I do not wish to pry."

I rose and took a step towards her, then remembered my half-clothed state. I could hardly move closer to her as I was. Embarrassed, I quickly pulled on the robe. Once I was decent, I walked over to Isobel and took her hand.

"Miss Magellan it is clear that you very much want to know whatever this is. Considering all of the inconveniences I have caused you, I would welcome the chance to atone by doing you a favor."

Her odd violet eyes searched my face, then lowered as she drew a breath. "I if you answer this question, I promise I shan't repeat what you tell me  not even to Katrina"

As if it were possible to keep a secret from Katrina. "What is it?" I prompted gently.

She swallowed. "If you had known what powers she had before would you still have married her?"

I did not answer at once. When Isobel glanced up at me, I was smiling sadly. "The real question is when I was finished passing out and calling her names would she still have had me?"

"What woman could refuse a man who would do this for her?" Isobel asked in a whisper, gesturing toward my wounds. Without another word, she left me. Only after she was gone did I fathom the reason for her question. And then I found myself sighing with pity for those marked for such isolation.

A few minutes later Katrina entered with a tray. "Put down that pen at once or I'll send it to the Sahara Desert."

Smiling, I obeyed. Before I could reach for the fork, it floated into my hand. I jumped and dropped it as if it were red hot. Shaking my head, I chided, "My love, my nerves are already frazzled. At least warn me when you're going to do this kind of thing!"

"I'm sorry," she said with a smile, bending to kiss the top of my head. "Now eat. You need your strength."

I picked up my fork again. There was no need for her to use her voice charm on me; I always did her bidding anyway.

I looked at her abruptly. "Why am I complicating things?"

"What?"

"I have been racking my brain for a way to sneak past the guards who will doubtless be posted around Hawke's mansion. But why don't we simply ask them to let us in?" She frowned, bewildered, and I elucidated, "Why don't _you_ ask them?"

Her face cleared as she understood. "Of course. I can do that."

"Excellent." I finally began to eat, and I did, in fact, please her by eating almost all that was on my plate.

A few hours later, we all gathered again in one of the booklined sitting rooms so that I could outline my fine-tuning of Katrina's sound but simple plan. I had eventually put on my shirt, but spared myself the tightness of the vest. I stood before the hearth, while Katrina sat beside me. The twins occupied a sofa together, and Quincy sat forward on an armchair, listening alertly to all I said. David stood behind him, his jaw set, clearly ready to stand firm if we tried to make him leave.

"When we reach the hedgerow, I want you all to remain concealed until I shoot the hound," I began. "Once I do that, I am going to take Hawke into custody." I remembered the respectful way the others in the mansion had looked at Hawke. He would be the best hostage, I felt certain. "We will keep them under control in this manner until Katrina can bind all the participants of the ritual. There shouldn't be more than four or five."

"Then they might outnumber you," David spoke up. "I had better come with you."

"No," I replied briefly.

"You could use my help!" he insisted.

"He may be right," Quincy mused. "His organ of valor is quite large. And more normally shaped than yours," he added with his usual tactlessness.

"I knew that," I answered softly, looking at the boy with mingled affection and envy.

"I could have guessed as much," Christopher muttered, but he looked as if he regretted his words even before his sister kicked him.

I smiled at Isobel. "There is no need to defend me, Miss Magellan," I told her. "You should hear the things my fellow constables say about me."

As for David, he gazed at me with desperate apology. "That isn't true!" he declared. "In Sleepy Hollow, who dared to go into the haunted western woods to find the Headless Horseman's grave? No one but you!"

"Two others dared," I corrected. I had despaired for the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow, when the only three people willing to defend it were a woman, a child, and myself. Katrina's hand reached for mine and clasped it reassuringly. I returned the pressure and turned back to David. "You are staying here. Where were we? Oh, yes. Katrina shall bind the other participants while I hold Hawke hostage. And five minutes after that, Miss Magellan, I shall need you to read the translation and free the demon."

"Why five minutes? Shouldn't we"

"I need those five minutes," was all I replied.

"But why"

I was spared from answering further questions when the tea abruptly wore off. The pain returned as quickly as a blow. I gasped and staggered, leaning on the mantel. Katrina was at my side in an instant.

"You should rest. You will need all your strength tonight," she said softly. I managed to nod in reply, and once more surrendered myself to her care. "David!" He promptly moved to my side. I leaned on his shoulder gratefully, in too much pain to resent being helped. His eyes were full of worry as he looked up at me. "Help him to our room. I will make something for the pain  it will be just a moment, my love."

She flew to the kitchen. David supported me as I limped toward the room we had been given. Quincy appeared on the other side of me, pulling my other arm around his shoulders. With relief I let the two of them half-carry me to the bedroom and help me to lie face down again.

I groaned as I settled. "Thank you, Professor Addison," I said in a strained voice. "You have done a great deal for us, for complete strangers."

"Strangers? You and I are great friends, Ichabod," he said coolly. I was a bit surprised at the use of my first name; it had been years since anyone but Katrina had used it. "I recognized it within a few minutes of meeting you, and so did you. Call me Quincy."

I managed a very brief smile for him. He was right; I had been very promptly certain that he and I were the same sort, and that we would become friends. The unconventionality of his quick acceptance of this was only one of the qualities in him which found sympathy in me.

Bea appeared in the doorway. "Saints preserve us, will you let him rest? The poor lad's got to be near collapse as it is."

Quincy obligingly left the room. David quietly but quite firmly took a seat beside the bed, determined not to leave me. Bea gave me a sympathetic look.

"She'll be here with your potion soon, young man," she assured me before leaving.

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly, trying to forget the pain which was sweeping over me in waves. After a moment, David's voice called me back.

"Sir." I opened my eyes. His face was worried. "Let me come tonight. Please. I need to help you. I couldn't stand it if anything happened to you!"

Again I managed a faint smile. "I very much need you to do something here, David. I need you to ensure the safety of someone who is very dear to me."

"I thought Katrina was going with you."

"She is. I was not referring to her." His eyes widened and became shiny as he understood. I went on in a low voice, unable to meet his eyes. "Do you think I could stand it if anything happened to _you?_"

I think if it were not for my wounds, he would have embraced me. As it was, he slowly clasped my hand. When Katrina entered, he quickly left without a word.

"Is something the matter with David?" she asked as she took a seat beside the bed.

"Like everyone else, he does not believe that I can do this," I sighed.

"_I_ believe you can."

"Then I am now twice the man," I murmured as I lifted myself on my elbows to drink the tea she held out for me.

"This will make you sleep for a while. You'll feel all the better tonight," she assured me. I drained the last of it and lay back down, trying not to moan, and failing.

"This is going to be more difficult to explain to the High Constable than the Headless Horseman was. Do you realize that until this past week, my attendance record was perfect?" I groaned, with both pain and worry. "They will use this entire fiasco for all it's worth."

"Shhh. Don't fret, my love. Whatever happens, we will contend with it when it comes. And it will be all right in the end, one way or another."

The pain was worse now that I had moved. I gasped and reached for Katrina's hand. "Talk to me," I pleaded. "Give me something to think about."

Her eyes shone with tears. "Oh, God why did this have to happen to you? Is this the world's repayment for all you are trying to accomplish?"

"Katrina."

She swallowed. "Forgive me, my love. What shall I talk about?"

"Tell me all about what happened yesterday." She hesitated, and I spoke more sharply. "Tell me _everything_, Katrina. Every detail."

Reluctantly, she began to relate the details of her ordeal. The story, as well as her potion, distracted me from the throbbing pain. I felt my blood rise as she told me about those varlets shackling her wrists; I wished I had not killed their leader yesterday, so that I could kill him again. As she described facing that brute down with a host of knives in the air about her, my heart swelled with pride. "My Joan of Arc," I whispered, drawing her hand to my lips. "I wish I could have seen that." Only later did I realize that most men would be ashamed to know that their wives are braver than they. For myself, I felt only admiration, and awe that this valiant woman loved me.

"And then we came here, because I did not know where else to go. And Quincy  I mean, Professor Addison  he had learned from the translation what was going on, and took us in. I can hardly believe such loyalty from someone we scarcely know."

"I think Quincy can be counted on to do the unexpected," I remarked with some amusement. "Katrina is there any more of that tea left? That you gave me this morning?"

"Yes."

"Good. I shall need it tonight." I closed my eyes, relaxing as the pain ebbed. It was not gone, but it was tolerable by comparison. And I felt reassured, knowing that my mother had offered her help, that I had two witches loving me and caring for me.

"She knows _you_, you know," I murmured.

"What?"

"She sent you to me. Found another beautiful witch to look after me." My voice trailed off. A moment later I murmured, "She must approve of you. Pity she couldn't tell me before I knew what you can do. I might not have panicked so then though I suppose I would still have fainted."

I felt my love's mouth press to my forehead as I drifted off.

But even two witches watching over me could not keep the nightmares away. I opened my eyes with a gasp as Katrina kissed my cheek. She was still at my side, her lovely dark eyes full of compassion.

"It's all right, my love! I'm here. You're safe."

I pressed my face into the pillow, shuddering.

"What were you dreaming about?" she asked gently.

"My father. Beating me," I said flatly. "I suppose the pain in my back caused the dream."

"Oh, Ichabod I'm so sorry for all of it."

"And then, _she_ came. She stopped him."

"She? You mean."

"Yes. My mother."

Katrina's hand gently stroked the hair out of my face as she began to cry. Wincing, I sat up and put my arms around her.

"Please don't cry, Katrina. I need you to be." My voice trailed off, and she continued weeping. "Lady Crane," I chided, "your husband just gave you an order." But of course, she continued. "Shall I have to resort to onion torture?"

She laughed through her tears. "Onions to make me _stop_ crying?" And she sobbed again. Perhaps I should not have mentioned torture.

I kissed her mouth lightly, and then her cheek. "I warn you, I will not stop kissing you until you stop crying." She gave a gasp that was something between a laugh and a sob. I continued to punctuate my sentences with little kisses. "Such a wayward bride," I murmured. "How can I ever bring her into line? Well, just so long as you don't laugh. You understand me? Don't laugh. Don't you dare laugh, or else." And of course, she did laugh. I smiled. "So this is how one controls a disobedient wife."

Wiping her eyes, she gave me a wistfully impish look. "I'm only humoring you."

"I will settle for that. After all, if our household is to have a despot, it is going to have to be you." I kissed her one more time and observed her calmer expression with relief.

Her hand pressed mine gently. "I am going to conjure your shirt off you," she warned. "I want to see how your burns are healing."

"Everyone wants to look at these. I should sell tickets," I remarked as I turned so that she could see my back. Her eyes met mine worriedly as my shirt disappeared; it was unlike me to make such jests. Then she focused on my wounds. Her pretty face acquired a grimness at odds with its beauty.

"I'm going to kill them," she whispered.

"No, you are not," I informed her, turning back to her. "Listen to me, Katrina. If at all possible, I do not want you to kill anyone tonight." I paused for a second; it was not an order I had ever expected to give my wife. "Do what you have to do, but please, try to leave executions to me."

"When I see the men who did this to you, I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself!"

"Try," I ordered gently. "Truly, Katrina unlike most constables, until yesterday I had never killed anyone and it is not a feeling I want you to have." I prayed she was not reading my thoughts. What I really did not want her to know was how good it had felt to see that villain collapse before me. It had been an ugly pleasure. I loved her innocence, and I would shield it with my last breath. And if necessary, beyond.

"How can you ask me to show those horrible men any mercy?" she asked in a broken voice.

"Only a few days ago, you said that you would do anything for me," I reminded her softly. "Now I am asking you to do something for me."

She sighed. "And so I shall, if it is possible." She quietly began to apply more salve to the burns. Her touch hurt, light as it was, but the salve numbed the pain a little. "But if you could see these."

"Cheer up. At least the  _mgh!_  the scar my father left must surely be obliterated at last," I replied.

Katrina regarded me gravely for a moment. "Oh, Ichabod this is hardly the time to develop a sense of humor."

"Do you think I will be able to resist reminding you of that remark the next time you tell me that I'm too serious?" I parried. In truth, I was surprised myself at the moments of lightheartedness which had been coming over me since arriving at Quincy's home. Perhaps there was simply too much tragedy present to sustain. "And by the way, Mrs. Crane, I expect not to hear you swearing again."

"What? Oh." She looked a bit abashed, though more amused, as she remembered the fairly mild oath she had uttered while searching her enchanted box the day before. "Did that trouble you so much?"

"Considerably. I am not going to have my wife using that kind of language, any more than I am going to have her hearing it."

"So that is why Christopher was so sullen over breakfast! You scolded him for his language, didn't you?" She gave me an indulgent, pleased look, her usual reaction to my shows of protectiveness. I think she likes to imagine that she does not need it. "I promise I will refrain from using such words if you promise to refrain from getting tortured again," she added tartly. "How do you feel?"

"The pain is not as bad as it was when I went to sleep," I said. "But I fear the reprieve will not last long."

She gently brushed a stray lock of hair away from my forehead. "My love, I have faith in you. But  you're exhausted. After what you went through yesterday, can you."

I took her hands and looked her in the eye. "After what I went through yesterday, my angel," I said quietly, "_I can do anything._"

She studied me, sudden understanding filling her enchanting eyes. She kissed my scarred palms again, shaking her head sadly.

"Why do you make yourself pay so high a price for faith in yourself?" she whispered.

"To convince myself that I deserve you," I whispered back.

She leaned to kiss my forehead. The touch was like a medal, a laurel wreath.

"Besides," I added lightly, "with so many people doubting me, I can hardly deny myself the pleasure of proving them all wrong. Did you put them all up to it?"

"You know I wouldn't do that!" She searched my face and the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. "But it's working, isn't it?"

I smiled as I gingerly stood up and reached for my shirt. So many times, pride is all that has kept me from fleeing from what I must face. _Pride,_ I thought, _is the root of all good.  
_

"Nonsense," my wife said. "What about love?"

"Katrina, stop that."

She lowered her eyes. "Forgive me. I am just so worried. Ichabod it isn't like you to joke about serious things. Or to roam the house half-clothed as you did this morning. You're not acting like yourself at all."

"Perhaps that is not such a bad thing," I said softly as I carefully buttoned my shirt. She came and brushed my hands away, taking over the job.

"What do you mean?" she asked softly, trying to hide her anxiety.

I smiled wearily. "No need to pretend, Katrina. We both know that I'm a coward."

She stared at me, stunned. She and David have always tactfully avoided any mention of my cowardice, treading on eggshells where it is concerned, knowing how hateful the topic is to me. Even during our earth-shaking quarrel she did not cast it up to me. I could not have blamed her if she had, though it would have been very difficult to forgive.

At last she sighed, shaking her head.

"If that is true," she whispered, "then you must be the bravest coward in the world."

There were no words adequate for this moment. Very slowly, I gathered her in an embrace.

Our gazes met for an eternal moment, and in her eyes I saw far more than I had ever seen before. I might almost have had her powers. I saw the infinite love that poured from her priceless heart, and along with the admiration of me that I would do anything to keep, I saw also the compassion for my weaknesses, the fond protectiveness that I had always resisted even as I clung to it like a starving man. But no more, because for the first time I saw that she loved me as much for my weaknesses as for my strengths; such was the generosity of her heart. Her words the night the Horseman wounded me came to my mind: _"Though I cannot cure the world, I would make you live happy in it."_ She had her crusade, just as I had mine. I could hardly try to deny it to her. I raised her palm, still covered with tiny scratches, and kissed it, returning her tribute.

For a long time, we held each other in the silence of perfect understanding.

At last I whispered her name.

"_Katrina._"

Does she know how much is contained in that word for me? All of my love. Everything that I revere. All of the hope I cling to. Everything that I wish to achieve. All of it can be expressed by the sound of her name.

When at last we released each other, she asked softly, "Isobel and I are about to do a spell. May I cut off a lock of your hair, my love?"

"What for? You've already bewitched me."

She smiled gently. "We are asking for success for tonight's endeavor and protection for our menfolk."

"At least this time I won't think it's an Evil Eye," I replied. "By all means."

She took her mother's scissors from her enchanted box and took a tiny lock of my hair.

Driven by a sudden, inscrutable impulse, I asked, "Are bystanders allowed?"

She raised her eyebrows. "If you wish."

I followed her towards the kitchen. Isobel saw us in the hall and fell into step with Katrina, carrying a small basket, her brother trailing behind us. Quincy and David followed. Bea looked up, startled to see such a large-scale invasion of her domain.

"We must use the hearth for a bit, Bea," Katrina said from depths of serenity foreign to me.

Seemingly infected by Katrina's calm, Bea stood back, inclining her head slightly to my wife.

"You could use the hearth in any of the other rooms," Quincy remarked.

Katrina and Isobel exchanged glances. "No," Isobel said in her silvery voice. "We could, but this is best. Now I pray you all, be silent."

I glanced around at the others. Christopher seemed resigned to be outside of this particular event, though not entirely happy with it. Quincy was as alertly observant as ever. David was quite solemn, looking at Katrina with his eyes full of devotion to her. Bea was quite matter-of-fact, as if she were often required to yield her kitchen for spell-casting. And I felt none of the nervousness I would have always before at being in the presence of magic.

Katrina glanced around at her audience with a very slight amused smile, and then she looked at her sister sorceress and promptly forgot all of us.

Katrina and Isobel knelt by the hearth. They did not speak, at least aloud. Perhaps they had already agreed on what needed to be done. They began by lacing their hands together as for one of Isobel's seances. They looked at each other in perfect and serene understanding, and I felt a flash of shame that I had tried to deny my wife this friendship, this sisterhood.

Katrina began to chant softly in Latin. A few seconds later, Isobel's silvery voice joined hers in what I think was Sanskrit; she must have learned the words by rote from someone. Quincy's eyebrows lifted as the women's voices twined together in their separate incantations.

With mutual accord, they released each other's hands, and Katrina took a piece of pink chalk from the basket and slowly, dreamily began to draw her pentagram, the same one that she drew to help me in Sleepy Hollow. Isobel took white chalk and began to draw a completely different sigil, overlapping her circle with Katrina's as their chants continued. In the center of her pentagram, Katrina placed a lock of black hair; at the center of her sigil, Isobel placed another of yellow.

As they finished their drawing and began to sprinkle flower petals and some sort of herbs over the chalk strokes, I studied their faces. This was something I could never share, could not even truly understand. But it was, to my surprise, indescribably beautiful. An infinite tranquility glowed through the two pretty faces, and a power so tremendous that it scarcely needed to act, it could simply _be_. For a few moments, the eternal power they were aligning with, seemed to blot out their individual personalities, making both of them manifestations of a power far older than man. I should have been afraid, but the true name for what I was feeling was awe. I had never truly realized what the word meant until that moment.

The women had stopped scattering the petals and leaves over their drawings and were lacing fingers once more when a sudden breeze rushed through the kitchen. We all glanced about, but no door or window was open. An instant later, the dried leaves on the sigils had sparked and begun to smolder, causing aromatic smoke to rise into the room. I had seen something similar before, when I was a child.

Katrina and Isobel did not miss a word of their chants, but their voices grew more hushed as they glanced around in reverent surprise at the sudden manifestation. Then Isobel's eyes focused above my wife's head, where I could see nothing; her expression was one of acknowledgement and welcome. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christopher looking at the same spot, his lips parted in surprise.

Very quietly, I began to weep.

It seemed a long time later that I felt my beloved's hands taking mine. I raised my eyes to hers. A bit of concern was added to that bottomless serenity which lingered from the spell. Wordlessly, she stood on tiptoe and kissed me. I did not even care that the others were all still in the room and saw her do it. She freed one of her hands and dabbed my tears away with a handkerchief, infinitely gentle, as if she expected it to hurt.

"Go and get ready," she said softly. "I will bring you some more of that tea in a few moments."

Numbly, I walked back to our room. The mundane act of pulling on my vest seemed absurd after what I had just witnessed. The spellbook that saved my life was safely in my pocket; beside it, I placed the scrap of blue silk with its reindeer embroidery and its stain of martyr's blood. As I placed it over my heart, I found myself glancing around again, wishing for a moment that I had Isobel's abilities.

I was washing my face, trying to shake the sense of unreality, when Katrina entered with a teacup. I took it from her, set it down on a table, and gathered her in my arms.

She carefully encircled my neck with her arms. "I love you," she said softly. After a moment, she moved back. "Please, Ichabod, drink the tea before the pain returns again."

"It is not gone," I said as I picked up the cup. "It is just numbed."

"Then keep it that way."

I drank every drop of the strange brew. As I finished it, I smiled suddenly. The last time that I had drunk this tea before this day, I had been given cookies with it to cheer me after I fell off a horse I had recklessly tried to ride, not having yet discovered the equine species' unanimous dislike of me.

Katrina searched my face as she took the cup from me, taking heart from my smile. "While you were asleep, we gathered everything that we will need. Dark cloaks to conceal all of us, pistols for all of us, and enough rope to bind an army."

"Excellent. Could you conjure one of my uniform jackets for me?"

"Of course. You are going in uniform?"

"Yes, it lends a certain authority. I am going to bluff them long enough to disarm them."

"I see." A moment later one of those absurdly dapper jackets was in her hands. She held it for me and I charily slid my arms into the sleeves. "And you have the scrap of silk?"

I put my hand to my heart. "Along with your book."

She smiled. "An honor for my gift, to rest beside hers."

Futilely, I glanced around the room again. If she was there, of course I could not see her. "I believe she approves."

"I hope so," my beloved whispered. "She has entrusted me with such a vital duty."

"Thank God that she did," I answered almost inaudibly. Our lips met. I knew that it might well be our last kiss, and if it had been, it would have been worthy.

We each armed ourselves with two pistols. "Keep your hair covered tonight," I ordered; those sunlit tresses would positively glow in the night. "I ought to make you cover your hair all the time. The Mohammedans really have the right idea. No one knows you have a wife worth stealing if she's veiled from head to toe."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she said in the tone I expect to hear directed at fractious grandchildren one day. I grinned. She smiled at me, but the worry had not left her eyes.

The stimulation of the tea bore me up, sending energy coursing through my veins.

"Tonight will be the greatest feat of my career," I remarked. "And history will never know of it."

She smiled. "That sounds more like the Constable Crane I know and love."

I wondered briefly at her amusement, but did not trouble myself to inquire; doubtless it was something only women or witches understand.

We were almost invisible in our black cloaks as we walked through the April evening. Katrina approached the gate as the rest of us held back. My heart was in my throat as a soldier walked toward her, but her head was high, her step unhesitating. I was prouder than ever.

"Would you be so kind as to open the gate for us?" Katrina asked sweetly. His eyes promptly glazed over and he turned and unlocked the gate. Another soldier neared, and she charmed him as well. When we had walked through, she added dulcetly, "You won't mention to anyone that we were here, will you? You shan't even remember it yourselves."

"Of course not," they both murmured vacantly. I shivered. I trusted her, but it was a daunting thing to see.

"This way," I prompted softly. The four of us warily moved around to the back of the mansion to the hedgerow.

As we neared it, an odd aroma reached us. It was some sort of sweetly fragrant herb, mingled with something I could not identify. "What is that?" I whispered tensely.

My fairy sprite was frowning. "The special mixture they must burn as part of the ritual. It is partly tannis root."

"And what else?"

"You do not want to know."

I took her word for it. I could hear chanting, just one voice, a male one. Latin and Greek mixed with Middle English. Through the bushes, I could barely make out the light of a bonfire.

"Stay here," I ordered in a whisper. I drew one of my pistols. Katrina pressed my hand for a second. The contact steadied my nerves and my hand. I squared my shoulders, feeling my usual tremors and doubts fall away as my purpose sharpened.

Without hesitation, I stepped into the hedgerow's opening and peered cautiously through. There were only four of them: Hawke, Burris, Dorn and Purnell, all wearing ceremonial robes. It was Purnell who was chanting, standing at an altar of black stone, draped with scarlet silk. On the altar was a huge pewter goblet with odd engravings on it; Cerberus, still drugged and garlanded, was tethered before it. Aloft Purnell held a short, ornate dagger of silver. I noticed that he was moving slowly, reluctantly, as if he were sore, and there were dark rings beneath his eyes.

Quietly, I removed my cloak and let it fall to the ground. In full uniform, I stepped inside the ceremonial ground, leveled my pistol, and fired.

I hit my mark perfectly. Cerberus was too drugged to even yelp; he looked up at the sky and then collapsed, and all eyes turned to me in fury.

I stood straight, ignoring the ache in my back, coolly drawing my second pistol. "Halt! The grounds are surrounded by constables."

"I told you not to let him escape!" Purnell shrilly declared to Hawke.

Hawke glared at me. "You've just cost me an entire year, Crane! You will rue this day."

"Not as much as you shall." My gaze was direct and cold. I moved to him swiftly. Dorn moved to stop me, but I was too quick for him; in an instant, I had twisted one of Hawke's arms behind his back and put the pistol to his head. His mouth twisted angrily; I knew that being physically overpowered must enrage someone his size. It would enrage me. I smiled coldly, pressing the barrel of my pistol more firmly into his head. "Show your hands, drop any weapons, or your leader is dead."

Hawke swallowed his rage and spoke calmly. "Do as he says. They shall never prove anything."

"Bluff to the end, Hawke," I told him. "All of you."

_Bind them, Katrina!_ I thought.

Suddenly Hawke barked out, "Prepare yourselves!"

I glanced around at them suspiciously, but all they did was lower their heads and closing their eyes as if ashamed or afraid. Hawke followed with a few words of Latin.

"Another word, Hawke, and you'll."

My voice trailed off. Right above the altar a misty shape was forming, odd colors swirling. My chest tightened. Perhaps I would have to tell Isobel to go ahead and free the demon after all, slightly altering my plans.

Then I felt the blood draining from my face, the sickeningly familiar sensation of being too terrified to faint.

"_No!"_ I whispered, staring at the shape resolving out of the mist.

Hawke stepped away from me quite calmly. My hands were frozen, could not move to stop him.

_No. No. No.  
_

It was all I could think. My mind was completely stopped, unable to function at all in that shock. This was how I felt the first moment that I saw the Headless Horseman, and when I discovered my mother foully murdered. I could not think at all, could only gaze in total horror.

The figure standing upon the altar was my father.


	7. Chapter 7

For a few moments, I was taken with the lurid precision and painstaking detail of the scene before me. The twins must have felt the same, for I heard each of them in turn murmur the same wondering, terrified expression: _Heaven help us! _The flawless obsidian altar, Purnell's hand-forged sterling dagger held high, the bittersweet smoke of tannis mingled with a draught of human blood unwillingly given....

No sooner had I let go of Ichabod's hand and drawn myself back under cover of the hedge when I heard the gunshot. Powerless to resist my own frantic curiosity, I glanced back through the opening, heedless of the prickly branches that clawed my cheek. Isobel's hand suddenly clenched tight over my own was all that prevented me from dashing after Ichabod into the bewitched courtyard. My eyes filled with tears, but whether it was the murk rising from the immolation upon the altar or a swell of pride as I watched my husband overpower the man who had tried to kill his spirit, I could not tell.

Christopher made a subdued utterance of disbelief as Burris and Dorn dropped their guns. Isobel gave him a desperate look, gesturing at the altar. I turned my eyes in the same direction, determined to reach Ichabod with my thoughts since I could not do so with my arms.

_Bind them, Katrina!  
_

And in that same instant, I realized what Isobel was pointing at. The burning was almost complete. The smoke had taken on an unnatural thickness, a languorous self-propelled motion. It would take only an order from Purnell or any of the others to unleash the creature that slowly curled itself into being above the altar on Ichabod.

"Christopher, give me the rope!" I demanded in a harsh whisper.

The five lengths of twine were in my hands for barely a second before I willed the first two to appear viciously knotted about the wrists of Colonel Dorn and Reverend Burris. Even as the two of them shouted in surprise, Hawke's voice rose above the others in a string of well-practiced Latin: _God have no mercy upon those who have none in the face of the Prince of Darkness.  
_

"No!" Isobel cried softly.

"It's too late," Christopher breathed, a horrible tremor in his voice.

I dropped the remaining three strands of rope as Ichabod's stiff, trembling hands released Hawke. Burris and Dorn fell on their knees, each squeezing his eyes shut as if his life depended on it. Purnell glanced nervously to one side, but Hawke's eyes remained in grim, steady focus upon the writhing pillar of smoke. In one great shift of a soundless breeze, the snaking pillar froze for a few moments before whirling away in a flash of crimson and indigo to reveal-

_Abigail Archer_.

My stepmother stood upon the altar, garbed in her cobweb gown of black and white, her platinum hair in wild disarray. She turned slowly, deliberately, scanning the courtyard with icy light blue eyes. Her gaze fell upon me, holding mine for an eternal second as her freshly bloodied lips parted in a smile.

I screamed in unison with my husband's tortured cries of "_No!_"

Hawke's and Purnell's eyes shot in the direction of my hysterical lamentation even as Hawke slapped Ichabod's back, causing him to fall with a moan. Ichabod's eyes were shut tight against the pain but could not stay his horrified tears.

_Had he seen what I could see?  
_

I pressed one hand over my mouth, willing myself to take deep, ragged breaths. With my very last ounce of courage I approached my husband and his captors in front of the altar, ignoring the specter that hovered over them. I heard two pairs of footsteps advance and retreat in a flurry of cries behind me.

"_NO! NOT ISOBEL!_" Christopher wailed.

"_Chris, I'm fine! But you-_" Isobel gasped.

"Who's got you? Are you all right? Isobel! Katrina? Answer me!" cried a familiar voice. My blood turned to ice as David's running footfalls manifested themselves from the other side of the hedge. I turned in time to see him reach the opening. His jaw dropped and he blanched to a deathlike pallor.

"_ICHABOD, THEY'VE GOT HIM HERE!" _David shrieked.

"Got who?" I demanded, rushing to his side.

"_The Horseman! How did they know? How did they know where to dig?_"

"David, they-"

I stopped. The twins were huddled just behind the hedge, clinging to each other as if they expected the world to end and were determined to exit this existence together. David fell against me, hiding his face in the crook of my neck as he had once before. Just then, a band of about ten soldiers came rushing through the opening in the hedge, only to take one look at the altar and flee- with many cries and agonized shouts- in the direction they had come. Steeling myself, I glanced at the altar once more. Abigail still leered at me from her high post, but her expression was unchanged. Nor had she or did she make any move to descend upon us...

I released David, grinning wickedly back at the shade of my stepmother. Purnell and Hawke said nothing, though pale-faced themselves, smiling as if they were enjoying every moment of our terror. I drew both of my pistols and extended them at arms' length.

Regarding my husband's captors, I turned my head to one side thoughtfully. "What are _you_ afraid of, Simon Magus?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest even as I fired a bullet from each gun. The one aimed at Hawke deliberately missed, but the bullet aimed at Purnell grazed his shoulder. The magician howled in pain. Ichabod looked up in shock.

"The demon manifests itself as the viewer's deepest fear!" I cried, rounding on David and the twins before meeting Ichabod's depraved stare. "_The vision cannot harm you!_ David, forget what you see and run for your life. Isobel... _now!_"

I heard Isobel's tremulous voice drown out the sound of her brother's tears. She held half-crumpled in one hand Quincy's translation, reading it with determination as she held her brother.

"Clever, clever witch," I heard Purnell rasp with effort, dabbing at his shoulder with his robe. Hawke stood over Ichabod, subduing his attempts to rise by delivering sharp kicks to his back. Each of my husband's agonized groans weakened my resolve. It would be difficult to keep my promise while I still had two pistols aimed at the only two people who I would ever hate as much as my stepmother.

"Cut those fools loose," Hawke ordered. His eyes fell on Isobel, whose lips ceased to move just as Purnell used the dagger to free Burris and Dorn. I glanced at the altar. Abigail Archer, Jürgen von Reiker, two pale-haired witches tied to a burning stake, and a host of other varying nightmares vanished in a seething, vaporous _hiss_.

"Subdue those mediums!" Hawke cried to Dorn and Burris. I barely had time to react.

"Isobel, catch!"

I hurled one pistol over my shoulder and turned just in time to see Isobel let go of her brother and rise to her feet, gun in hand. I ducked as she fired two shots in rapid succession, a bullet from my gun and a bullet from one of her own, her eyes glowing as strangely as they had in the candlelight the night before. Only once Burris and Dorn had both fallen did I realize that Christopher had also fired from where he crouched at her feet. Isobel's second shot had missed Dorn, but her brother's had not. Isobel dropped the gun, her eyes suddenly fearful, as if seeking an absolution that would never come.

_Katrina, did I... Did I kill him?  
_

I studied Burris and Dorn. Their still forms lay less than four feet apart, a trace of blood evident beneath each.

_I don't know! _I responded numbly, my eyes drawn to Hawke, who had begun to struggle toward the mansion with Ichabod.

"Do as you will with them," Hawke called grimly over his shoulder to Purnell. "I have a more pressing matter to deal with."

 

*

 

Hawke seized me and dragged me to my feet and towards the manor. I was too dazed from pain and horror to resist. Katrina's words echoed in my head, but they were only a series of meaningless sounds; my mind had room only for shock. Was my father alive after all? Or had these evil men raised him from the grave with their hellish arts?

Only when Hawke had me inside was I able to emerge from that mind-stopping horror. As from a trance I emerged, looking about frantically. My useless attempt to resist was cut short by a sudden intense pressure to my back.

"I won't allow you to escape this time, Crane," Hawke told me grimly. He had one of my arms twisted painfully behind my throbbing back and was steering me through the halls, towards the staircase to the cellar. "You've cost me an entire year, and you are going to regret it."

_Run, Katrina! Get to safety!_ I commanded futilely, knowing how unlikely my wayward bride was to obey me. Her words before I was taken inside were finally clear in my head, and I berated myself for yielding our advantage for an illusion.

But I could not give up, even now. I trusted that Isobel would be reading the translation. Hawke's greatest weapon would soon be taken from his hands. My worry was Katrina, where she was at the moment. In spite of my mental command to her, I was virtually certain that my Joan of Arc would follow me into the mansion. Because of that, I had to get free. But the pain in my back, newly awakened by Hawke's blows, was so intense that I could scarcely think.

We reached the bottom of the stairs. I recognized the heavy oaken door to the torture chamber. I did not want to even enter that room again. I waited till I felt his grasp slacken. Only slightly, but it was all the advantage I had, and I acted swiftly. With all my strength, I raised my arm over my head and brought my elbow into his face. Blood spurted from his nose, making my stomach curdle even as the pain in my back flared anew.

Seizing the advantage of surprise, I turned and punched him in the jaw. He staggered against the wall, glaring at me with pure hatred.

"You've lost, Crane. You've lost the battle, you've lost _her_."

I only smiled. His bluffing was as absurd as it was desperate. I studied him warily, waiting for an opening to attack. My burns canceled the advantage of my greater size; I had to proceed cautiously.

"You damned fool! You're as frightened of her power as you are of your own shadow. He can offer her something you never could: he reveres her power!"

I winced; he had hit a vulnerable spot. But I knew better.

"I have some idea of what he wishes to do with it... and with her. That is not reverence," I murmured hatefully.

"At least _he'll_ be able to stay conscious throughout his first night with her. Which I am sure is more than _you_ managed to do."

My face turned red, but I controlled myself. As it so happened, he was wrong. Though there had been a few moments when it was a near thing.

He continued to taunt me, obviously hoping to make me lose my temper. "Pretending to faint. A woman's trick. You even brought two women with you to a fight!"

I smiled coldly. "Is that the best you can do? My fellow constables have devised far more clever insults for me."

His eyes flickered, focusing for an instant on a point just over my shoulder before moving back to me. I glanced behind me, expecting to see one of Hawke's soldiers or accomplices approaching. There was no one. Hawke seized my brief distraction to run, not into the torture chamber, but into one of the other rooms. It had been a clever trick on his part. Furious, I ran after him. But once again he had seized the advantage; he was standing against the wall, and as I dashed through the door, he was ready to strike my back another vicious blow. I fell with a cry, enraged at myself for having fallen into such a simple trap. Before I could rise, Hawke kicked my ribs, hard. When he tried to kick me again, I seized his foot and pulled him to the floor, where we grappled desperately.

  

*

 

Purnell's pained eyes scanned the twins' faces and the trembling patch of hedge which I knew David had taken shelter behind, still too stubborn to leave. He then looked at me, and deemed what he saw of greater importance than the other three combined. I had heard Ichabod's insistent plea that I should run to safety, but it meant little when the others were in such grievous peril. I could not leave them. I closed my eyes and sought Isobel urgently.

_Take David and run! Return to Quincy, or... I don't care where you go! Just see to it that you are all safe, my sister.  
_

What if I never see you again? I knew without turning that Isobel's eyes were filled with tears.

_You will. No matter what, Isobel. I love you. Now, go!  
_

Remember her, then. That you may call her, sister! That she is waiting. She is your hope. I pray she finds a way... Godspeed our meeting, in this life or the next!

I glanced over my shoulder as Purnell made his way toward me. David and the twins were gone. I took a few steps backward, consumed by an anger so fierce I prayed it would engulf the entire place in flames. I brought the remaining pistol level with Purnell's temple, cocking it for emphasis.

"If you come one step closer, you'll be sent to meet your master none too soon," I warned.

Purnell froze, the feverish glow in his eyes a composite of greed, desire, and unacknowledged defeat. I wondered how he could still look at me so, after all that I had done. Denial was a bizarre thing in and of itself, but I could not help but wonder if devotion to black magic only heightened its effect. It had certainly done so for my stepmother.

"You are unlike any woman that I have ever known, witch or otherwise," he breathed heavily, lifting his hand from his shoulder to find it covered in a new caking of blood. "It's just a pity that you cannot bring yourself to do what your husband so obviously forbids. And I thought you were _strong_, Lady Crane. Imperturbable in the face of male weakness. Surely I was not wrong about what I saw in you?"

He made a swipe for the gun, but I swung it ten feet in the air and pointed it downward at his head. I found myself battling the urge to pull the trigger more fiercely than ever before.

"On the contrary," I said in a strained voice. "I am about to show you how strong I truly am. Take me to where Hawke is dragging my husband or you'll join Cerberus and-"

Reverend Burris had begun to stir, moaning faintly. Colonel Dorn remained motionless, and when Burris' eyes opened a slit, his fallen comrade was the first thing to meet his gaze. With a grim smile he acknowledged my presence, lowering his head onto the grass once more, too weak to rise.

"As I said," I whispered to Purnell. "Cerberus and Dorn. Master and hound, bound in death. I have only to bind you to yours, you wretched cur."

Without a word, Purnell turned and dashed in the direction that Hawke had gone with the pistol in hot pursuit. I gave chase as fast as my legs could carry me, struggling to maintain control of my airborne firearm.

I dashed after him through an open cellar door and found myself barely able to keep up as he turned one corner of the torchlit corridor-maze after another. It was too late when I realized what he was doing. He turned into a low-ceilinged cell, and the gun hit the wall above his head and fell with a useless _clink. _I was running so fast that I could not stop myself. I tripped as I crossed the threshold and found myself hurtled after him into the cell. As I struggled to rise, tangled in my own skirts, Purnell dashed along the wall and slammed the door of the cell.

I rose shakily, enraged at having been deprived of my weapon. Purnell had drawn the dagger from his belt and was coming toward me. I backpedaled until I lurched into a crevice of solid stone. I was cornered.

"Did you think that you could win?" Purnell asked as if he were scolding a naughty child. "Did you believe that you would spend the rest of your life with that _coward?_" he leered, leaning so close that I felt his breath upon my lips, the point of his dagger grazing my cheek. Inadvertently, I lashed out in the only way I knew how. If I could use his thoughts against him, I would. But what I read made me so promptly ill that I forgot my intent. Before I knew it, my right hand had encountered his cheek full force.

As he staggered backward with a yelp, I shuddered, too repulsed to find words. I pressed my cheek against the wall, offering a last prayer to He who had seen fit to bless my brief existence with the bliss of the last six months. Magic seemed to pale in comparison to a measure of faith. And as I opened my tear-filled eyes, I heard Ichabod's voice ring from the other side. The sounds of a scuffle became apparent, punctuated every now and then with another man's grunt. He was fighting Hawke with the last of his strength.

Purnell rose to his feet, his breathing furiously heavy. I looked away as he struggled out of his robe, baring both the tattoo on his chest and his mutilated shoulder. He raised the knife, approaching me as I had approached him with the pistols in the courtyard.

"Ichabod!" I shouted, hoping that the echo reached him in the next cell.

"He can't save you now. He's nearer to his deathbed than poor old Reverend Burris. When your opponent is severely burned, size _really_ doesn't matter," Purnell hissed, leaning close as he had before.

A few fresh cries and kicks from the other side of the wall were enough to revive my hope. I ignored Purnell's comment and murmured sweetly, "That's what _you _think."

"Perhaps," Purnell said distantly, resisting the charm despite its immediate dazing effect.

I didn't waste a second. "None of you can stand it that I'm usually right," I said with annoyance, causing the both the dagger in his hand and the pistol in the corridor to vanish simultaneously.

 

*

 

I heard Katrina's voice calling my name, and my heart sank. I had hoped against all hope that she had obeyed me for once. And I could not even defend myself, let alone come to her rescue.

Hawke heard her too. We were still on the ground, struggling with each other grimly, his face bloody, my back on fire.

"She's here! Can't you control your wife?"

"No."

As I spoke, I noticed a pistol and a dagger several feet to my right. I was certain they had not been there a moment earlier. She had provided them. But I had to wait for the right moment to try for them; I could not let my opponent get them. I looked away from them, not to draw them to his attention.

"Ask your wife to cast a spell for you, Crane," he advised, pressing on my back. I cried out. "I don't think Purnell has quite all of her attention... _yet_." 

 

*

 

Purnell glanced at his empty hands in disbelief. He snarled, lunging at me. "You--!"

I cried out to Ichabod again, ducking Purnell's grasping hands and making a start for the door. I prayed that the pistol and dagger had arrived within his reach. What was more, I prayed that he would _use_ them. As if in response to my cry, one of Ichabod's pained groans echoed from the other side.

"You would be nothing without her, Constable!" Purnell jeered, throwing wide his arms as if inviting attack even though a stone wall separated them. "You would never have made it here if not for her meddling."

"Then I thank God for it!" Ichabod shouted, his voice reverberating back.

"Unbelievable," the magician sneered. "You could not even stand up to the demon's manifestation, a mere _illusion._"

"You were somewhat stricken yourself, if my eyes did not deceive me," Ichabod grunted, sounds of the ensuing scuffle accompanying his retort. I clung to the doorknob, torn between flight and remaining in a spot where Ichabod's voice could easily be heard.

"Remarkable," Purnell challenged, "that they could even have possibly done so when they were, in fact, closed the entire time."

"They were open long enough!" Ichabod cried.

Purnell's eyes bulged furiously as he reverted back to his gasping, fish-out-of-water self. Ichabod had ingeniously verified what I had hoped against hope was true: my words had stung the pretentious mage... _deeply_. I moved slowly into the hall as Purnell continued to rant at the walls.

"Katrina!" he cried in desperation. "The silk--" He was cut short by another indeterminate but forceful blow from Hawke.

Without hesitation, I transferred the scrap of blue silk from Ichabod's vest pocket to one of the flickering torch sconces in the neighboring cell. In my mind's eye, I reverently watched it unravel and vanish in a glowing wisp of smoke. The dungeon's very foundation seemed to quake as a thunderous gust of wind tore through the maze of its halls. In the blast's wake, an eerily comforting stillness enveloped me even though Purnell had been swept violently into a far corner of the cell. Its warmth was tangible- completely _alive_.

A musical voice composed of an incomparable beauty filled my mind:

_You need only tell me what I must do, my beloved son and daughter.  
_

 

*

 

 

It was _her_ voice. I had not heard it in twenty years, except in dreams, but I would have known it anywhere.

"Mother?" I whispered.

Hawke looked up from his struggles with me, too startled by the manifestations to hear me. Quickly he struck me again. I gasped.

My son, my son, what would you have me do?

"What is she doing, that witch of yours?" Hawke demanded.

_I can help you at last! But choose quickly- and wisely, little love!  
_

The childhood endearment brought tears to my eyes, but she was right, I had to think, and quickly. Hawke struck my back again. I yelled. The pain was indescribable. I can face terror; I have done so before. It was the pain that was paralyzing me. If only I were not burned, I could...

_You needed only to ask, my son. But the fire must go somewhere else when I take it from you, so beware....  
_

And in a breath, the pain was gone. _Gone._ Still lying on the floor, I moved cautiously. I felt as if I had never been burned at all. I felt wonderful. My eyes widened with astonishment. I wanted to leap to my feet, but caution stopped me. I stayed prone on the ground and groaned. I spoke in a hoarse, low tone. Hawke leaned closer in order to hear me.

"Do you know that there are advantages to being a coward?" I rasped, speaking the dreaded word bluntly.

"Really?" he sneered. "Such as what? Persuading a beautiful witch that you need to hide behind her skirts?"

Normally those words would have stung me, especially since there was some truth to them. But now I swiftly turned and landed a decisive blow to his jaw, moving with glorious ease now that my burns were healed.

"Such as having one's enemies consistently underestimate one."

And I had the pleasure of seeing that knowledge in his eyes as he backed away. I have seen that look before, and it is perhaps the greatest reward my calling offers. I advanced towards him.

"You should have noticed that when Lady Crane is threatened, I tend to forget that I am a coward."

He was crouched over slightly. His nose was still bleeding, and his mouth was already swollen from my blows. As I moved closer, he tried to punch my stomach. I blocked it easily, twisting his arm.

"You really should be careful who you pick fights with," I informed him. "You should have realized that a challenge to my courage would make me as stubborn as a challenge to your size would make you." I leaned closer, speaking softly. "And you should consider carefully before crossing a man who is loved by witches."

With that, I delivered one more decisive blow to his head. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious. I seized the pistol and the gleaming dagger and raced in the direction of Katrina's voice.

 

*

 

"Ichabod!" I cried, crossing the short distance between the two cell entrances. He ran to meet me, wielding the silver dagger in his right hand. He embraced me fiercely.

I sobbed as I clung to him, a desperate question forcing its way through across my lips with each breath. "Are you all right? Dear God, I thought I was losing you again! What did she do? Is Hawke dead? Be careful, because Purnell-"

Ichabod kissed me hurriedly, pressing one of his pistols into my hand. "Katrina, you _must_ get out. As I love you, run for your life. Find the twins and David; let nothing separate you once you have. _I will find you_." His arms tightened around me one last time.

I regarded my husband with brief astonishment. "Ichabod, you don't seem to be-"

He steered me in the direction of our entry. "_Go!_"

I watched Ichabod enter the cell, his eyes fastened on the figure hunkered down pathetically in one corner. Purnell's bloody shoulder and the silver flash of Ichabod's dagger were the last things that I saw before I turned and dashed up the hall, trembling from head to toe. Several moments later, I wished with a vengeance that Ichabod had warned me of what I would hear echoing from behind.

 

*

 

I heard her light steps moving down the corridor and up the stairs. Then I advanced toward the corner in which Simon Purnell huddled.

My left hand was about to grasp him, my right poised with the blade, when he wrenched away and shot past me desperately. I pursued him down the corridor past a series of cells. He stumbled as he neared the stairs and I was upon him. We wrestled for a moment; when he escaped my grasp, I was between him and the stairs. In desperation he ran in the other direction, dashing through the stout oaken door, trying to close it before I could follow. But he was too late; I threw myself against the door and burst into the room. And then I stopped stock still.

The room he had chosen to hide in was the torture chamber. I looked at my enemy, and at the devices around me. He looked in my eyes, and in them he saw my father's son. It must have been a fearsome sight.

I simply stood there for a long moment, regarding him.

"You are an enlightened man. A humanitarian," he wheedled nervously.

"And surely I will be performing an act of compassion by ridding the world of you."

"You are a man of principle! Of law!"

"I am. Except where the woman I love is concerned."

I looked at the medieval devices at hand. Shall I pretend I was not tempted? Shall I pretend there is any fate I would have considered too horrible for that man?

But I did not choose that route. Nor was it my rational principles that stayed my hand. Rather it was the thought- the _feeling_ that my mother's son, Katrina's husband, must not be tainted with that kind of deed.

Not that he deserved a pleasant death. I raised my fist and gave him a ringing blow that rendered him senseless. While he was half-conscious. I took the silver dagger, and with it, removed the protective sigil from him. He whined as I worked, and his arms tried clumsily and weakly to push me away, but he was too dazed to effectively resist.

Generally, the sight of blood makes me ill. On this occasion, it did not trouble me at all. I only hoped that Isobel's work had not been done too soon.

As it turned out, it had not. Almost as soon as I had finished my task, the room went very cold. Somehow, without sense or reason, I knew. So did Simon Magus, who jolted into full consciousness and made a desperate dash, as if running could save him. I moved to the doorway swiftly, and then I turned. Purnell's flight was stopped as his body began to jerk in the grip of an unseen force. And so at last I learned exactly how Gabriel Erickson had met his end.

To my own surprise, I watched Purnell's death quite calmly. Under normal circumstances even one drop of blood is enough to weaken my knees. Now I watched a river of it, an explosion of it, without flinching. Nor did the sounds Purnell and his attacker, in but not of the air, make me quail. It is amazing what sufficient hate can make one do.

When it was over, I tossed Purnell's tattoo into the hearth- and then lunged backward to dodge the sudden rush of flame it inspired. The flames poured forth from the hearth to swallow the instruments of torture one by one. I remembered my mother's pyromancy and understood what her warning had meant. Swiftly, I left the chamber.

Hawke was still where I had left him, half-conscious. He groaned as I bent and dragged him to his feet. I half-carried him up the stairs. When I glanced behind me, I saw that the fire was following me, just a few feet behind. And it continued to swallow the walls and ceiling just behind me as I dragged Hawke through the corridors of his mansion and out the front door. I dropped him on the doorstep of his burning mansion.

When I let him fall, I staggered on, shivering at a sudden vivid memory of fleeing from a flaming windmill with a ghost on my heels. I saw two people running towards me. Katrina... and David. My brows drew together when I saw the boy. He had screamed before I was taken into the mansion, I remembered now, when I had been too horrified to take it in.

They each clasped one of my arms, neither realizing that the pain of my burns was gone. I looked from one to the other, shaking with relief.

"Don't either of you ever listen to me?" I asked wearily.

They both opened their mouths to explain, but I felt a familiar sensation, that of a sudden loss of energy as the heat of emergency evaporated. I lifted a hand, staying their words.

"Don't do anything... until I wake up," I ordered, right before pitching forward into the expected and welcome darkness.

 

  

*

 

 

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," Christopher said somewhat weakly, trailing his sister with hesitation as they emerged from behind a large iron statue that was part of the estate's front gate, where I had found them huddled with David. Despite every order he had ever given, spoken or implied, the boy and I had gone running to meet Ichabod as soon as we spotted him depositing an unconscious Hawke on the front steps.

I coughed as the wind carried a billow of smoke into our midst. With rising flames hot upon my face, I slid my arms beneath Ichabod's, giving Christopher a pointed look.

"Does it look like he is?" I asked shortly. "Get his feet. _Now._ If we don't leave this place, we'll soon be ashes ourselves."

After a few moments' stubborn hesitation, Christopher took hold of Ichabod's boots and struggled with me in carrying him off the grounds. Isobel followed, one arm protectively around David's shoulders. I could see why my sister-in-spirit had taken it upon herself to support him. David looked as if he might collapse himself.

We made our slow, laborious way up the oak-shaded dirt walk to the end of the street. A crowd had begun to gather on the opposite side of the street, various passers-by added to a throng of women and children that had come pouring out of nearby homes. Luckily, they were far more interested in the blaze than in the five of us that fled it, although a few onlookers did point and stare at the fact that the man we were dragging appeared to be a constable. What might have taken half a minute had we all been on our feet took ten. Christopher's hands kept slipping, and David continually opened his mouth as if to speak and then closed it again just as quickly, his wide eyes full of some internal conflict. As we settled Ichabod on the curb, Isobel touched my arm.

_I'm worried about David. And I hate to ask you to do something that I know you wouldn't as a rule, but...  
_

I nodded as I folded Ichabod's arms across his chest, reading David's thoughts furtively. What I saw didn't really surprise me, although it did make me regret that I had not offered some comfort sooner.

_He's in mild shock, Isobel. I can see why. I would be too if I'd gone through something a second time that I had hoped with all my heart never to see duplicated.  
_

Isobel nodded sadly. _The Horseman and the fire... Katrina, say something to him. Ichabod's not going anywhere.  
_

"I'm sorry," I whispered, looking away. I left Ichabod's side reluctantly and put a hand on David's shoulder. He offered me a forced, nervous smile.

"David, I'm glad that you came," I said quietly, embracing him.

"You... you are?" he asked hesitantly, drawing a hand up to his eyes, pressing it over them tightly. He was trying desperately to keep himself from crying. "How can you say that?"

I stroked his cheek, replying with a grateful smile. "Don't you realize what you did?"

"Yes," he said sullenly. "I got in the way. I shouldn't have followed you."

"That's not true!" I said firmly. "David, do you realize that you were the only one to cry out what you saw standing upon the altar? If you hadn't done that, I would never have known the nature of the illusion... in fact, I might not have realized that it was an illusion at all."

"Really?" he asked hopefully, tears gathering in his eyes. "So Ichabod won't be angry with me?"

"Neither of us will," I reassured him, choking up in spite of myself. "_Neither of us!_"

"We should really get out of here," Christopher said impatiently. "I don't think we want to have anything to do with this explosion. The longer we hang around, the more likely we are to be questioned by the authorities. Ironic, that in a way we _are_ the authorities-"

"Would you shut up?" Isobel said in exasperation, continuing to scan the street. As I released David, I realized what she had been up to the entire time. Her expression went hopeful, and she pointed.

"I see one! But it's going to pass this street entirely if one of us doesn't-"

"You see a _what_?" Christopher demanded of his sister.

"A carriage, a cab, your bloody _transportation_," she replied hotly. "You can run faster than I can. Go catch it, direct it this way."

"Are you crazy? That's five hundred yards-"

"Just run. It was your idea."

"It was not!"

"_Go_," Isobel ordered, raising her eyes and her hands upward in a strange combined gesture.

Christopher went pale, muttered something, and sprinted off. I was too busy trying not to laugh. I couldn't help but compare their exchange to the one that Ichabod and I had on the night I materialized his ledger. The chief reason that men cannot disown their ideas _must_ be that we will not let them. And how little would get done in this world if we were not there to do so!

"What did you do?" David asked timidly.

"Oh, this?" Isobel asked, repeating the gesture with a grin. "He thinks Rishkha and I have some kind of secret signals. Which is partially true. The two of them don't always get along. When I was younger, I used to call Rishkha and have him follow Christopher all day."

"You mean when you were more like your brother," I teased, watching Christopher reach the spot where the cab had halted and plead with the driver.

"Naturally. I wasn't always so level-headed," Isobel confessed.

"Nor was I," I laughed.

"I still don't think you are," Isobel suggested with a mischievous grin.

"Thank goodness!"

After much cajoling that consisted of profuse reassurances that he would be paid well upon reaching our destination, I Christopher and I convinced the cab driver to carry us back to Quincy's. The ride was cramped, and to make matters worse, Ichabod, still unconscious, was wedged in between Christopher and I. With every turn, his head lolled either in the direction of my shoulder or in the direction of Christopher's. Christopher was none too pleased.

"Even if I live to be ninety, I still won't believe this," he whispered to Isobel.

"Who says you'll live to be ninety?" she replied loudly. "Rishkha, could you help me on this one? Tell me-"

"_Fine_," Christopher muttered, folding his arms across his chest.

I looked down at David where he sat crouched at my feet. We looked at each other and smothered our mirth in our hands for the remaining few blocks. I wondered if Ichabod knew how much more comical his swoons tended to make the worst of situations. He would be annoyed, I decided, but secretly proud that his weakness was in fact our saving grace time and again.

The four of us navigated our way around Ichabod, stumbling out onto the embankment in front of Quincy's residence. Balancing Ichabod on the seat, I thought for a moment before trying to struggle out of the cab with him.

"David, go in and get my bag."

David gave me a strange look. "Can't you just-"

"Not _here_," I whispered, indicating the impatient driver with a nod. David ran up the front steps, met at the door by a startled Beatrice. He dashed inside without explanation, leaving her alone on the threshold to stare at us. After a few moments' hesitation, she rushed to Isobel and Christopher, her eyes fixed beyond them upon Ichabod and I where we still sat in the carriage.

"I would never have believed all of this in earnest, I swear it," she said in awe, touching Isobel's disarrayed hair and studying Ichabod's ash-smeared cheek sympathetically. "Now I _know_ that what you went through justified Quincy's wringing his hands and pacing."

"He was that concerned?" I asked, touched.

"Of course he was, dear. He has a heart too great for his frail frame," Beatrice said comfortingly. "Come inside. He'll be overjoyed to see you've all returned. And maybe see fit to tell me what this was all about!"

"I'm afraid I must not, although I can't thank you for all that you've done," I said gratefully, feeling my own strength ebb for the first time. David came racing down the steps with my bag in hand, a spry, elated Quincy directly at his heels.

"But that's nonsense," Beatrice insisted, dismayed. "You surely can't mean you're running off to-"

"Home," I said firmly. "I'm taking my boys _home_."

"What about us?" Christopher asked edgily.

Isobel hit him. "Is surviving not enough for you? There are cabs aplenty on this street! We'll get our own!"

"You can stay here even though you're an ingrate, young man," Quincy volunteered cheerfully. "Friends of the Crane's are friends of mine."

Christopher turned away, red in the face. David handed the bag up to me while Quincy pushed his way after, reaching up for one of Ichabod's limp hands.

"I don't care if it was the pain or just plain fright that did him in," Quincy said to me as I fished for some coins. "He got you out alive. All of you, which is what matters. Tell him I expect to see him when he's on his feet again."

"I shall," I said, dropping a generous payment into David's hand, indicating that he should give it to the bewildered driver. "He will be just as eager to see you."

"But not as eager as he will be to see you, young lady. Let it not be said that there was never a hero risen to fame who did not have a heroine by his side."

"Or in the shadows, or in the air," I said quietly, accepting Quincy's kiss on my hand. "Thank you. Oh, God, I cannot say it otherwise. _Thank you_."

Isobel's hand found its way around David. It clasped mine briefly.

_Just say my name. We can speak of this later. Sister, I am grateful beyond measure that our meeting was on the right side of the veil!  
_

And I, too, I replied, squeezing her hand. "David, let's go," I said, sliding Ichabod into the far corner of the seat and patting the space next to myself.

"Madam?" the driver inquired with slight indignation, as if he could not believe I was making yet another request of him..

"Karrigan Square," I said flatly. "You'll be paid twice what you were just given."

"Yes, madam."

 

*

 

 

When I opened my eyes, I was in Katrina's arms beneath the canopy of her fairy-tale bed. Sunlight filtered through the curtains. My head ached. I sat up slowly, trying not to disturb her, but she opened her eyes at once.

"Are you well?" she asked softly as she sat up and reached for me.

I traced the line of her cheek with my fingertips. "Only if you are."

She put her arms around my neck and hid her face against my heart. "It's over," she whispered.

"And so is America." She pulled back to look at me. "I can't imagine what this country's surviving founders would say if they knew our entire nation was saved from monarchy by a New York City constable whose name they could never guess, let alone they've never heard!"

I smiled at her. "I did not do it alone," I reminded her softly. "I doubt I could have."

"I doubt that. I think Ichabod Crane would always find a way."

I was not entirely certain that she was right, but I was glad that she believed so. Very gently, I kissed her. Our bond had never been more complete or more perfect than in that moment.

"I've got to see your burns," Katrina said tensely. I nodded and pulled off my shirt, then turned so that she could examine my back. She was silent.

"Well?"

"Ichabod, they're..."

"Healed?"

"_Gone_."

"Gone?"

"As if you had never been burned at all. No scar, not a trace." After a moment she added, "And the scar your father left... it is gone, too. I should have known that blue silk was a more powerful remedy than the herb that came wrapped in it!"

I glanced down and noticed that the scar the Headless Horseman's sword had left that night by the covered bridge was gone as well, as if he had never wounded me. And so was another mark that had been slightly above my waist, an inch-long souvenir of an occasion when I received a shallow cut apprehending a murderer who was armed with a knife.

Slowly, tremulously, I lifted my hands and turned them over. My palms were clear and unscarred.

"Katrina," I whispered, too stunned to move. She moved to look at them. Tears filled her lovely eyes, as she bent and kissed my _unmarked_ palms. I closed my eyes and shed tears of gratitude. For some time, we wept in each other's arms, and when our lips met again we tasted each other's tears.

 

Later that day, I strode into the constabulary with my head high and my stomach knotted, carrying the evidence I had gathered under one arm. How on earth I was going to explain my absence, I could not imagine. The High Constable looked at me as if I were an unusually large insect.

"Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence!"

"I was-"

"Spare us, Constable Crane. We'll hear all about it Friday, at the hearing."

"Hearing?"

"Yes. Your discharge proceedings."

"It might interest you to know that I was investigating Colonel Joseph Hawke on suspicion of embezzlement, and he--"

"Enough of that, Crane!" the High Constable exclaimed heatedly. "I don't know how you discovered that we took Colonel Hawke into custody last night, but don't think you can spin one of your outlandish yarns to reinstate yourself after vanishing into thin air for the last two days!"

I swallowed, trying to contain my temper. "Why did you take Hawke into custody?" I asked carefully.

He considered dourly before deciding to answer. "His mansion burned down and several corpses were found inside. It's possible that Hawke killed them and started the fire to conceal his crime. I suppose if we let you cut the bodies up you'd claim they had bullets in them or stab wounds or who knows what. But I doubt he's guilty of anything. He'll likely be released tomorrow. And _you_ will be released on Friday, and good riddance! Now get out of here till then!"

I parted my lips to protest, but stopped. I would have the next two days to try to bring my story into some sort of coherent order. I would not waste time arguing now; I was simply too exhausted. They would indeed hear all about it on Friday.

I tucked the evidence more securely under my arm. Given my current status with my colleagues, it would be best if I were not the one who presented it. No, I would appeal to someone who was certain to see justice done.

 

 

*

 

 

"_Ow_! Katrina-"

"I know you're not used to this, but for heaven's sake, hold still!"

Isobel gritted her teeth attempting to suck in her already-flat stomach as I gingerly pinned the sides of my old pink taffeta gown in place. "It's really too much, though," she protested earnestly. "I couldn't ask you to- ow!"

I paused, sticking the pin in my mouth as I readjusted the seam. "You're thin as a rail already," I scolded gently. "Don't waste your breath on sucking in what's not there. Just be still." I was awed at her thinness once again, a frailty that seemed to defy the amazing power contained within her meager frame. I would never have imagined the day someone would have to have one of _my_ gowns taken in, as small as I knew myself to be. "That's right," I said, at last sliding the pin easily into place. "Now, what were you saying?"

"I couldn't ask you to give me something so fine!"

"You _didn't_ ask me," I said pointed out. "I _insist_ that you take it, as well as three or four more that I have upstairs. Plus the one that I gave you the morning after Jürgen's visit; I told Christopher to make sure he and David bring it on the last trip from McRaker's Alley."

"You mean I have to go through this five more times?" Isobel asked wearily even though her eyes shone with grateful tears.

"No," I laughed, helping her slip out of the pinned-up gown and back into her own. "I'll just use this one as a model for the rest. Or send them all to the tailor if I lose my patience."

"You've done so much for us. Too much, Katrina! You know we'll never be able to pay you back. Although I'm afraid Christopher might continue to pay you a mouthful more than you deserve."

"Having you for a sister is enough," I said fiercely, embracing her. I cast a sidelong glance at our reflection in the full-length mirror. "Besides, you'd be prudent to accustom yourself to frequent extravagance. And I do believe your brother and I have reached an understanding," I said with an air that I hoped said nothing so much as, _I dare you to guess what I mean by that!  
_

Truly, dare her I did. I had lain awake for a long while that morning before Ichabod awakened from his swoon-induced slumber, resisting the urge to dwell upon the previous day's battle as best I could. I did not want to replay those harrowing scenes indefinitely, however great a propensity my mind seemed to have for the habit. I told myself forcefully, _What's done is done. _We had come off conqueror, and that was all that mattered. As much as I longed to know the answer to the nagging question of who had finally dealt with Hawke's blazing mansion, I had enough sense to finally conclude that it was really none of my concern. And to thank God that Ichabod was not a member of the fire department rather than the constabulary!

My thoughts had turned to a more practical worry: the twins. I knew that Quincy had undoubtedly seen them home safely, or had even kept them in his own home for another night, for all I knew. I took comfort in knowing that no real danger awaited them in either course. But I did know Isobel well enough to realize that she probably insisted they return to McRaker's Alley.

The very thought of the place awakened in me an old unease- that Ichabod would never approve of me setting foot there again for any reason. A fear which had proved itself real enough, I couldn't deny. I had twisted the pillow's hem about my index finger to the point of rendering it threadbare by the time I realized that having contact with Isobel meant as much to me as having David constantly at a hand's breadth. Perhaps I would even miss Christopher, heaven help him!

Which was when I knew that my inheritance would simply have to end up less the cost of another house.

Hoping the quickened pace of my breath would not wake Ichabod, I shut my eyes tightly. I was about to do a very cruel thing, but it was necessary. Not that Christopher agreed that being awakened at six in the morning by his sister's best friend was necessary. Once his mental grumping had spent itself, I quickly informed him by stream of consciousness that I expected he and Isobel to show up as soon as they were up and about. David would then accompany him back to McRaker's Alley for the first load of their things- which I knew would not be much- and take as many trips as necessary to bring it all back to Karrigan Square. He ceased to protest when I broke down and told him out of sheer frustration that I was buying him a home, so he'd better be grateful. I did not want him to tell Isobel, to which he agreed. I had to surprise at least one of them, and I preferred it to be the one dearest to my heart.

The house I had in mind was one that had lain empty for quite some time. Its location on Glenn Church Road parallel to Raleigh Avenue was not as immediately close as I would have hoped, but at the same time, it was not far- a closer walk than Quincy's, most definitely. And so, shortly after Ichabod's departure, a tired-looking Chris and his befuddled but ever-optimistic sister turned up on the front walk. Fitting Isobel for some temporary new gowns had proved the perfect way to allay queries as to why I insisted that they abandon their flat and move in with us.

"It's only temporary," I reassured Isobel, releasing her. I left her standing in front of the mirror as I retrieved four more old gowns from the next room, holding each up so that she could see what the colors would look like in contrast to her eyes. "I'm going to help you and Christopher find a new place. I can't imagine the two of you living in the Alley forever. There has to be a safer location."

"I only hope we can pay the rent," she said hopefully, sitting down beside me on the bed and helping me take out the seams of a rose-colored chiffon.

"You know we'll take care of that," I reassured her, wondering if my excessive tendency to grin had yet aroused her suspicions.

We had not pulled out two stitches apiece when Ichabod burst in with an armful of documents. If he had not been so visibly disconcerted, he might have noticed that there was a guest in our bedroom. He dropped his papers on the very spot my sewing box sat, and they hovered comically, supported by nothing. I had not bothered to render the box visible.

Ichabod acted as if Isobel's presence were as matter-of-fact as mine. "Sometimes it's easy to forget why I do what I do," Ichabod said with light irritation, brushing his hair back, as was his frequent agitated habit. "I hope you'll both come to the hearing on Friday."

I rose, leaving Isobel to be nearly dragged off the bed by the gown when I released it. "Hearing?" I demanded uneasily.

"They're dismissing me for what I believe is properly termed 'frequent unauthorized absence.' But of course the High Constable put it so much less tactfully than policy maintains."

"Sounds like a job Christopher would excel in," Isobel murmured, sharing in my indignation.

"_Don't_ encourage him," Ichabod said flatly, acknowledging her presence for the first time.

I took my husband's newly-healed hands. "I don't understand. Surely they realize that you were acting in the line of duty!"

"Perhaps it was presumptuous of me to think that half an acre of cinders on High Street would have convinced them, too."

"They made it to the scene of the fire?" Isobel asked.

"In time enough to put Hawke in custody, at least. They would not let me intervene in his questioning or present conditions of captivity. And I stood before them with evidence enough to reinforce it!" Ichabod stormed, indicating the papers on the floor with a frustrated wave. "Katrina, I left the guard house believing I could calmly accept a few more days' preparation, but the more I thought about the uncertainty of Hawke's fate, the more immediately I would prefer the hearing. I will _not_ see him go free. If he fancies himself worthy of exile, he had better guess again. I _must_ see to it that he gets nothing less than he deserves."

"Which is?" Isobel pressed, her mind doubtless fixed on the yet unreturned tablet.

"Inglorious imprisonment," I guessed, backed by Ichabod's grim nod. "Like a common criminal."

"Please tell me that things only take a turn for the worse right before they're about to get better," Ichabod muttered. "I won't have the time that I thought I would have. Katrina, I have to get that evidence to Remington _today_. Even if the hearing must wait until Friday, Hawke's conviction _will not_."

I kissed his forehead. "Then go. I agree with you."

"Will you find him for me?" he asked with a somewhat pleading smile. "I would rather know his location than waste my time hunting it down. The man must have a dozen appointments."

"Don't tell my brother she can do that," Isobel giggled.

I struggled against the current of the city's thousands to find a man who I had glimpsed in public only once. And found him much closer than I expected.

"Ichabod!" I blurted, grabbing his arm as my eyes flew open. "Our urchin courier's standing on the corner of Raleigh and Glenn Church. He doesn't realize it, but he's just informed me that Remington's to be present in an hour at the Fairfield."

"Oh, Lord," Isobel sighed. "Whatever for?"

"A luncheon, I believe."

"I don't know how they continue to keep the kitchen open!" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

"Then, love, I am to be present there in an hour as well," Ichabod said with renewed determination, kissing me quickly before bending to retrieve the evidence. He jumped involuntarily, stifling his cry into more of an audible gasp.

"Uncharm that trunk in the attic before I forget it's there," Ichabod said nervously, glancing away from Isobel in embarrassment.

"By all means, do," Christopher volunteered from the doorway, his arms overflowing with the gown that I had lent Isobel, in addition to her own few. "We all know where we'd find you if you happened to toss your jacket over it."

David hovered close behind Christopher in the hall, scowling at his fellow mover's jibe. Christopher had meant to sound lighthearted, but his attempt at good-natured humor was as ill-placed as it was ill-chosen.

Isobel leapt to her feet, reddening. "How long have you been standing there?" she demanded of her brother. "You chose the wrong way to announce your arrival. Give me those gowns and-"

"_Get out_," Ichabod finished for her, barely containing his humiliation over the invasion of our private domain. "Everyone except for _you,_" a sharp glance in my direction implied.

Ichabod pressed my shoulder for emphasis as the twins, chagrined, filed obediently down the stairs. I retrieved the gowns that Christopher had deposited on the floor, offering my husband an apologetic smile.

Still clutching the evidence, Ichabod took a seat on the bed, permitting his weariness to get the better of him once we were alone. "I should have asked you sooner if I'd had the presence of mind to, but... _what on earth are they doing here? _The living room looks like a storage shed! Katrina, I am fond of Miss Magellan, but if you've invited _both _of them to move in without consulting me, I swear-"

"Sh!" I hissed, laying the gowns out with the others to be altered. I sidled up behind Ichabod on the bed, embracing him reassuringly. "They'll only be here for a couple of days, until the deal on the house is foreclosed."

"_House?_" Ichabod cried.

"I'm buying them one," I said sweetly, kissing him on the cheek. "I knew you'd understand."

Ichabod nodded in exasperation, surrendering. "Is it the one on Glenn Church Street that's been empty for a while? Pine log construction, brick chimney-"

"Oh, no," I corrected him. "The _other_ one on Glenn Church, closer to the intersection of Raleigh. Charming stone walls, burgundy slate gables, palisaded garden behind-"

"The one that's been empty for even _longer?_" Ichabod asked incredulously. "It'll even cost more. Though the owner will probably be glad to be rid of it, as I've heard tell the place is...." Ichabod trailed off, giving me the most ridiculously reproachful look I had ever received in my life.

"_Exactly_," I chimed, kissing him on the mouth this time. "I figured that on the side, this was as good a way as any to find out if what they say is true. But since when did Constable Crane credit rumors of haunted houses?" I teased.

"Ever since his fairy sprite proved that mediums exist," he sighed, returning me the favor. "However irritated I may have been a few moments ago, I simply _cannot_ find it in my heart to oppose you. How is it that I can deny you nothing?"

"Perhaps I charmed you," I suggested insidiously, wondering what would happen if it were used in jest.

"Yes... perhaps..." Ichabod murmured, feigning a trance before collapsing on my shoulder in quiet laughter.

"Oh, come along, Sir Rational, and fear not for the state of your own free will! You have something that Senator Remington will thank you vastly for showing him."

As soon as Ichabod departed for the Fairfield (with much trepidation invoked by Isobel's renewed warnings to steer clear of the kitchen), I talked David and the twins into taking a walk in order to "settle everyone's nerves." As I had anticipated, Isobel paused in front of the beautiful, abandoned address on Glenn Church Street. She hovered reverently at the front gate, her eyes flickering and fixed upon the front porch.

"Can you hear the swing, Christopher?" she asked in a low, distant tone with a sad smile playing upon her lips. "I wish that you could see it."

"I can hear it," he whispered to me, as if afraid to disturb his sister's reverie. "It creaks something awful."

"Would the owner want this taken care of?" Isobel asked suddenly, a wistful glow in her eyes. I could tell that her thoughts had turned to ways of paying higher rent. "It's the simplest kind to take care of. In fact, if I lived here, I don't even think I'd want it to be gone."

"Then you don't have to do a _thing _about it," I reassured her, putting my hands on her shoulders.

"But I don't even know whose place this is, let alone have I offered to-"

"In a few days, it will be yours."

Isobel blinked at me. "Katrina...?"

"She's no liar," Christopher confirmed, tugging on one of her braids affectionately. "I'm in on it."

I spent the next ten minutes trying to coax a joyfully weeping Isobel off my shoulder. When at last she did regain her composure and we had managed to steer her away from the house, a wondrous thing happened. She looked back over her shoulder, smiled tearfully, and waved.

I was shaken by the eerily distinct sensation that whoever sat on the phantom swing had waved back.

"She didn't die there," Isobel murmured in explanation, drying her eyes. "She just wanted a place to stay, a place that she likes. I won't mind her at all. She must have been a well-behaved child."

I did not require further explanation of my sister. I simply held her in a one-armed embrace for the rest of the way home.

By the time Ichabod returned, Isobel and I had finished sewing up two of her new gowns and had begun to discuss dinner. David, eager to keep the potential nuisance out of our hair, dragged a patronizing Christopher to Colin's house. I thanked God for the hundredth time that Colin's mother was such an easygoing woman.

Ichabod entered the kitchen looking even more pale and tired than before. He studied Isobel and I as we sorted potatoes, tiredly fascinated.

"Are those for a soup?" he asked, making for odd preamble.

"No, a kind of sautée that my mother used to do," Isobel replied. "I'm showing your wife how it's done."

"I trust they've learned to keep any and all tubers out of Old Tory's reach," Ichabod muttered faintly.

I turned to him, concerned. "You didn't have a run-in with... did you?"

"My guess is he did, since that's what they call the redcoat," Isobel whispered.

"Not exactly," Ichabod replied, "but I will never quite be certain how my boot managed to pull itself off while I was sitting in the receptionist's parlor."

"You had to _wait_?" Isobel asked.

"Not for long, but I was still thoroughly shaken by the time Remington's aide fetched me."

"You spoke to him in person?" I asked.

"For whatever faults he has, Christopher would be proud to know his idol is as kind as he is busy. I placed the evidence in Remington's hands myself. And received some puzzling reassurance, but no matter."

Ichabod nodded vaguely. "Yes. That I have much less to worry about than I think I have. Frankly, Hawke in the hands of those incompetents down at the guard house is _plenty_ to worry about."

Isobel had been silently musing over Ichabod's encounter. "He took your _boot?_"

"As I said, I'll never know. But it did come off quite roughly."

"That's Tory all right," Isobel sighed. "He likes you. I'm jealous, you know, that the violent ones find you so appealing."

"By all means, take them!" Ichabod pleaded, his expression turning more serious. "Which _does_ remind me. I have given some thought to... I..."

"Yes?" I asked him expectantly.

"No, not you.... I meant Miss Magellan."

Isobel looked at him kindly. "I'm so far in your debt that you could ask me to summon your own demons, for all I care."

"No, I like mine well enough buried where they are, though thank you for the offer, even if made in jest... God knows, with enemies such as I have a propensity for attracting! No, what I meant to say was... would it be presumptuous of me to request one last séance?"

"You've earned yourself a lifetime supply free!" she exclaimed. "Not at all." She grinned mischievously, but her eyes reflected an undercurrent of pure comprehension. "Who shall it be this time? Your sister, perhaps? Or your uncle?"

"No," Ichabod said softly, smiling back. "A certain firefly who has saved our lives on more than one occasion... my mother, Isobel," he added, at once all seriousness.

"She's been waiting for you to ask," Isobel told him. "And so have I."

Ichabod looked at her imploringly.

"Of _course_ you meant now," she said gently, tossing the potato she'd finished peeling into the pot. "This way."

She led Ichabod and I into the cluttered living room. I was grateful that we had not gotten as far as lighting the stove, for having a live flame in the next room while channeling a fire adept somehow struck me as irreverent. If any flames were to be lit, _she_ would be the one to light them.

Isobel rummaged in a crate, pulling out the blue velvet. She draped it across the tea table, and the three of us took the positions around it that we knew so well.

"No ashes?" I asked.

"Not this time," Isobel said. _Too flammable.  
_

I see, I responded, wide-eyed.

Not that it'd be dangerous. But for other reasons, symbolic.

I trust you, I said, smiling.

Ichabod offered her his hands before she had the chance to request them. Isobel laced her fingers tightly with his. She sat for a few moments, staring at her lap as if uncertain.

I was concerned. She had never behaved so reticently before.

"Isobel?"

She looked up at Ichabod pleadingly. "I won't lie to you. I don't know what will happen."

And moments after she forced herself to close her eyes and began to whisper, Ichabod pitched forward onto their interlocking hands.

 

*

 

Isobel later told me that the séance she performed for my mother was unique in her experience. Perhaps even as a spirit, a witch has special powers.

There were no words, only images and feelings. The questions I had meant to ask were swept away.

I did not, of course, realize that I had lost consciousness and that my head was resting on the tea table, my hands still laced with Isobel's. Nor did I hear Katrina's worried queries or Isobel's reassurances. And only later did I learn that, just as I slumped over the table, every candle and hearth in the entire house blazed to fiery life.

I was transported to the glade where she and I used to go, where I would gather forget-me-nots for her and she would levitate at the center of the fairy ring of mushrooms. I was enveloped in warmth, not only that of the sun, but of my mother's love. In this timeless place, I forgot every moment of suffering in my life. It was as if I were seven years old again, and this woman who adored me was the whole world.

I felt her embrace envelop me. I allowed myself to be swept along. Every moment of unhappiness I had ever known was wiped away, just as her magic had wiped away all of the scars I had acquired in my life.

I felt the benediction of her kiss upon my forehead. And then she spoke to me, but without words. It was simply a feeling, as if I were experiencing her emotions. And what I experienced was the most glowing approval I could imagine.

She showed me everything she had seen in the twenty years she had spent watching over me, unable to intervene. I saw the heartbreak she had felt as she watched me grow up in misery. She could have turned away from witnessing these events, so painful for her to see, and gone on to the next world, but instead she faithfully remained with me, determined to stay until she could do something for me again.

And even in her grief for me, she was able to feel compassion for my father's awful folly, as he saw her face in mine and struck out in terrified guilt.

I felt her fear and hope for me when I ran away. I experienced her worry as I grew to manhood, that I too would become what my father had, and her pride when I found my life's purpose. I felt her compassion for my struggles, both with accepted traditions and with myself. I saw her constantly hovering about as I moved through the world toward my purpose, believing myself alone and forsaken. But I was_ not._

She showed me her tremendous elation when twenty years had passed and at last she could look after me once more. And the best way she could imagine to do so was to find someone who would look after me for the rest of my life, who would adore and hearten me just as she would have. To her joy, she had found someone who would glory in doing just that and whose life also had a void that I could fill as no other could. Even as she tended to me, she was able to save one of her own kind from the loneliness to which most witches are doomed. And I saw my mother's anxiety as she watched the obstacles that threatened to come between me and the girl she had chosen for me. I felt her delight when the two of us were wed as she had hoped, and the greater satisfaction my mother had felt as she observed the course of our marriage and confirmed that her choice had indeed been a wise one.

And she told me, still wordlessly, that all that we had both endured had been worthwhile, because my work had given purpose to our tragedies. Since then, I have only seldom been able to believe this, to feel this way, but at that moment I had no doubt that I had redeemed our suffering, and her sacrifice.

Finally she told me that while her year was not over, she had now done what she had meant to. And that I had at least two more blessings approaching before her year ended, but she claimed credit for neither. One, I would find, was due only to myself, and the other would be a gift from another.

After she had related all of this, we stayed in the fairy ring glade for a timeless moment. We simply glowed in our love for each other, and allowed that love to heal our hearts as she had healed my scars.

When I woke and raised my head, I found that I was still looking into those warm, mysterious dark brown eyes, but now they were set in quite a different face. Though one that was no less lovely. I released Isobel's hands to clasp Katrina's, and silently wept in my wife's arms, wept with bittersweet happiness as she held me and as Isobel quietly left the room with a tearful smile of her own.

I spent most of the following day closeted in my laboratory, preparing my defense. I knew it was a losing battle, but I would not surrender without a fight.

Katrina had informed me that Quincy wished to see me. I sent David to my newfound friend with an invitation to my dismissal hearing. Let them all see the kind of backward mind I had to contend with.

David brought supper to me in my ivory tower. We had scarcely spoken since the night at Hawke's mansion, simply because so much had been happening that there had been no time. Now he set the tray down and hesitated beside me till I looked up at him.

"Sir I'm sorry I didn't stay away from Hawke's. I tried to, honestly, and I just about went crazy. I couldn't stay away while you and Katrina were." He broke off and looked at his shoes.

My brows drew together. "I understand that," I admitted reluctantly.

He peered up at me nervously. "Are you angry at me?"

Remembering the odd mix of admiration, gratitude, annoyance and fear for him I had felt when I realized he had followed us, I drew an agitated breath. He was not breathing at all, but waiting for my approval or lack of it as if the world depended on it. I had to reassure him when he looked so anxious.

Gestures of affection are quite natural to Katrina, but for me they are always awkward. I made myself clasp David's shoulder. Our eyes locked, and all we had been through together, the tragedies we shared, our mutual protectiveness of each other, and the unspoken understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses we have shared since Sleepy Hollow -- all of this was expressed in that gaze.

Before I could lose my nerve, I drew him close, unable to say what I wished to. But I think there was no need to say a word. He returned the embrace promptly, as if he had been waiting for it.

"Are you angry at me?" he repeated in a whisper after a long moment.

"Try harder next time," was all I could say. But I think he understood.

When we released each other, we shared a rueful smile. Swallowing, he spoke more lightly. "Katrina said to tell you that if you don't come down soon, she'll send all your equipment to Constable Green's house."

"I would like to see his reaction to that," I mused. We both laughed, easing the awkward seriousness. "I'm almost finished," I assured him.

Indeed, it was not much longer before I descended. Katrina and Isobel were each stitching on a gown while Christopher toyed idly with a cup of lukewarm tea. None of them were speaking, but the expressive way they kept glancing at each other led me to conclude that they were communicating just the same.

"May I join this conversation, or are only witches allowed?" I asked lightly as I entered the living room.

"The twins have been making plans for their new house," Katrina explained with a smile, clasping my hand.

"We hope you shall both be frequent visitors, Constable Crane," Isobel said with one of her shy smiles.

"You may as well stop calling me that," I replied. "As of tomorrow, it shall no longer be accurate. Katrina, I am going to retire early. I would hate to be late for my own dismissal."

"I, too," Katrina agreed, rising. She did not speak to Isobel, but the look they exchanged convinced me that they were bidding each other an affectionate good night.

In our room, I sat wearily on the side of the bed as I unbuttoned my vest. "You are welcome to stay with your friends, my love," I told her. "I am simply not in any state to socialize tonight."

I bent to pull off my boots, but she conjured them off me. I gave a start, but quickly recovered myself as she sat beside me and wound her arms around me. For a couple of minutes we simply held each other. I wearily leaned my head against her shoulder, twining my fingers in her spun-gold hair.

Without preamble, she went straight to the heart of the matter in a gentle voice. "Is the New York constabulary the only place for your mission?"

"Of course not," I conceded. "I will find a way to carry on. One way or another I shall pursue my quest. It is only after all the years of work I've put into the constabulary it is most galling to finally admit defeat."

"Sir Rational, admit defeat? I cannot imagine that. In any case, you have not been discharged yet," she encouraged. "Your defense could still keep you instated."

"I will fight it, but there is little hope. I think they have only been waiting for an excuse to be rid of me."

She kissed me. Then she held her hand before me, scratched palm up. An instant later a red rose from the vase of them on her bureau was in her hand.

I took the proffered flower and studied it. Then I stood and took another from the vase. "Have you ever conjured this one?" I asked.

"No, why?"

I laid them carefully on top of my own bureau, side by side. "I am going to put them both through a chemical analysis to see if there are any discrepancies caused by the materialization process."

She stared at me for a second before beginning to laugh so hard it must have hurt.

I looked at her. "_Now_ what is amusing?"

She caught her breath. "I was considering being annoyed with such an unromantic reaction to such a poetic gesture on my part, but I can't be. It is too perfect an illustration of what kind of man I have married." She ruffled my hair affectionately. "I suppose that Sir Rational and his mind in numbers is going to try to find a scientific explanation for magic now?"

Abashed at my mis-reaction, I tried to explain. "Well, there must be one, and if I can--"

She stopped my words and her own laughter with a kiss. When my head had just begun to spin, she ended the kiss to speak. "Explain _that_," she challenged pertly.

So well had she done her task that it took me a moment to find words for a reply. "I believe that is what Aristotle called a First Cause. There can be no explanation." She laughed again, and I shook my head, looking at her fondly. "I shall never understand your sense of humor."

"You mean there is something that Constable Crane's logic cannot analyze?" she teased.

"_Constable _Crane," I repeated sadly, reminded of what the morrow would bring. I had had enough of playfulness for now. I pulled her closer, inhaling the honeysuckle scent of her hair for a long moment.

She dropped her whimsy to speak seriously, rubbing my back as she whispered. "Whatever happens, I will be here beside you."

I closed my eyes, surrendering to her loving attentions. "And with you, I can face anything. You are the answer to every prayer I felt but could not say before you restored my faith."

She spoke softly, hesitantly, her lips against my ear. "Ichabod I expected to have to hide so much of what I am for my whole life. I thought that I would have to hide my magic always. Even from you, who I love more than life. You gave me something I never hoped for. Do you know how much that means to me?"

"Do you have any idea." I had to pause, or my voice would break. "how precious that is to _me_?"

I moved so that I could look into her warm dark eyes, and marvel. After so many years of bleak solitude, I could scarcely credit how full of blessings my life had become.

Our lips met, and we reaffirmed our devotion to one another, a devotion which was far more than I ever expected to experience. Let alone receive. And in that sweet communion, a setback on my crusade seemed quite trivial. With her faith in me, I could find another way if this one was barred.

I escorted Katrina up the steps of the courthouse, her hand tucked into the crook of my elbow. At least this would probably be the last time I would have to wear that blasted uniform. Katrina wore the ivory cardinal disk I had given her about her throat. I received several envious glances from my colleagues as they saw her on my arm. The Magellans followed us with Quincy and David. David looked as if he would personally thrash anyone who spoke disrespectfully to me. Quincy was attentive as always, looking more interested than concerned.

As we passed through the anteroom, we had to pause while a few constables escorted a line of criminals shackled to each other by one long chain linked with each of their ankles to the cells. One of the constables was Green, who looked at Katrina in a way that made me wish he had seen how I dealt with Simon Purnell and Hawke's "courier". Quincy examined Green and told me promptly, not bothering to lower his voice, "Stay away from that one. His phrenology is appalling."

I was no longer looking at Green. A few of the men on the chain were familiar to me: a couple of petty confidence men, a counterfeiter, and an embezzler named Joseph Hawke.

I did not realize I had stopped, or that Katrina's hand had tightened on my arm. My eyes locked with Hawke's. No distinguished exile for him, no notoriety. He was a common criminal who had committed an ordinary crime. In his gaze at me I saw the helpless fury of mortally wounded pride. He glanced for a second at Katrina, his look actually frightened as he regarded the woman he had meant to sorcerously enslave. And when his eyes moved back to me I saw the knowledge of defeat in them.

I allowed myself to stand for a moment, watching Hawke march chained toward the cells. At least I had this satisfaction with which to end my career on the constabulary.

When Hawke was out of sight, I drew a breath and squared my shoulders to face my dismissal. I led my companions into the courtroom and stayed by Katrina's side until she was comfortably seated between David and Isobel. Then I stood waiting for my case to be called. The Burgomaster had marked my entrance, but he did not acknowledge me until he had finished the matter he was dealing with. Then he summoned me in his heavy, carrying voice.

I came to stand before the Burgomaster with a high head and a set jaw. I waited silently for the words of my discharge.

"Constable Crane." The Burgomasters ponderous voice echoed against the high ceiling. He skewered me with his piercing eyes for a long moment before continuing. "The discharge hearing has been canceled; we have other matters to discuss today."

I looked around warily. I felt certain that the other constables knew what was in the wind, and I tried to gain some hint of it from their faces. The High Constable and the others were all looking at me oddly. I had seen that look before, part surprise, part resentment, part grudging respect, on the faces of schoolyard bullies when I was named head of my class  as I invariably was. Perhaps seeing Katrina had inspired that look this time.

The Burgomasters voice interrupted my speculations. "In view of your excellent work investigating Colonel Joseph Hawke" -- my eyes flew to those of the High Constable, who looked as if he were being subjected to one of the medieval devices in which he places such faith -- "Senator Alan Remington has allocated some of the funds recovered from the embezzlement committed by Colonel Hawke and Senator Trevayne, for the establishment of a detective branch of the constabulary." He paused. "To be headed at his request by you, Constable Crane."

Even as my shoulders squared, the tension ebbed from them, and I raised my head higher. My hands and stomach ceased their trembling and I could not speak, could hardly even think anything; I just stayed in that moment, hearing those words ring through the still air. It was one of the most solemn moments of my life  surpassed only by the moment when Katrina Van Tassel became Katrina Crane.

Hawke had been right about one thing. I only needed to be liked by one man of vision.

The Burgomaster glared at me, but I think he glares at everyone, no matter what the circumstances. The High Constable approached and handed me a very impressive document, signed by Senator Remington and bearing an official seal; the charter for my new endeavor. I took it slowly and began to read it.

The High Constable spoke as if the words tasted bad. "An office has been assigned to you. You will be expected to report to the Burgomaster regularly on your activities." He did not sound especially cheered by this, and I had just read why: the terms of the charter required me to _report_. Not to obey. My eyes met those of my former superior. I tried very, very hard not to look smug.

This was the first of the two blessings my mother had told me of. I was not to learn what the second was until Katrina told me at the end of that summer.

And so the following day I took possession of my new office. The High Constable lurked sullenly in the doorway, watching my every move with suspicion. But he and all the other constables had been speaking to me and looking at me with reluctant respect. None of them wished to cross a man who received favors from a Senator. It was absurd, but I had to admit it was satisfying.

I had not been able to sleep the night before, and I had refused Katrina's lovingly amused offers of a sleeping draught. My mind had been racing with plans all night. There would have to be a course of training for detectives, and I would have to write manuals on all the various branches of deduction I had explored, and I would need supplies of chemicals and instruments but first things first.

"Since detectives have rather different duties from the other constables," I remarked to the High Constable, "I really see no need for us to wear these uniforms."

 

*

 

I filled the small eternity of the days since Ichabod's promotion with the task of procuring the twins' new home. While the three of us haggled and signed papers with David looking idly on, Ichabod was caught in a maelstrom of reforms and proposed assignments. For three days in a row, he returned from duty inordinately late, tired enough to collapse after eating only a few bites but triumphant enough to afford our temporary guests a constant smile. As for me, I came to appreciate seeing him off in the morning and holding him after sundown more than I ever had. David, too, grew restless in Ichabod's extended absence, which energy I promptly put to use on the fourth day.

"Don't look so stricken," I told him over an armful of Isobel's astrology books. "This move is less than half the distance from here to McRaker's Alley."

"Yes, but because Ichabod's not here, it'll seem twice as long!" he sulked from behind a stack of small boxes.

I put the books down on the front step, turning to remove a box from the top of his stack in order to see his face. "David," I said with playful concern, "I think you've become as spoiled as I have over these past few weeks. But it can't always be that way. Sleepy Hollow and Hawke are rare, rare exceptions. Ichabod's work will keep him out of the house more frequently, now."

"More like full time," David retorted, his eyes shining with a mix of hurt and envy.

I put the books on top of the box I had taken and continued down the stairs with David close behind. "As much help as you've been, David," I tried to console him, "we simply can't have you constantly in the line of fire."

"I know that," he sighed. "Ichabod said that, too. I just wish..."

I carried my load to the back of the carriage, finding Isobel engaged in a determined attempt to force a bundle of Christopher's clothes into less space than they demanded. "You just wish what?" I asked, depositing the books beside a familiar blue velvet bundle.

"I just wish I could do something to make a difference. All the time," David confessed, handing me the boxes one at a time.

"Your time will come," I said with an air of more reassurance than I actually felt. "Soon."

It was true enough, as I would soon discover. The summer would bring a turn of events that would change his life as much as it would change mine. And though I could not see it in that moment as we went back for the last of the Magellans' possessions, I saw a glimmer of what was to come: a chance and a blessing. In my heart, somehow, I knew... the chance would be David's.

"That's everything," Christopher announced, bounding down the stairs to meet the rest of us at the carriage. Isobel hid her laughter behind her sleeve. Her brother was acting like an eight-year-old boy on Christmas morning.

"Are you sure?" Isobel managed to say between giggles. "You might want to check under the tree one last time. You could have missed something tied up in a big bow that has your name on it."

"Knock it off," he said, gently cuffing Isobel's right ear.

As the four of us squeezed into the coach, I couldn't help but smile. Beneath the twins' constant teasing ran a current of love and trust. Christopher seemed to know only one way to show the depth of his affection, and Isobel was glad to bear it even if it meant tolerating a yanked braid.

Isobel stood in the middle of the spacious living room, surveying the box-littered emptiness of their Glenn Church residence. Christopher had already set himself to prying his possessions open at random, having somehow convinced David to help him. For a long moment, Isobel's eyes fixed on a spot in the doorway of the adjoining tea room.

"Later," she said briefly, blinking in amusement.

"You'll like it here," I whispered, hugging her. "I know you will."

"I just can't believe that all of our possessions combined don't even fill the living room!" she exclaimed. "There are two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. We don't even have-"

"You'll have beds in a few days," I said in my firmest contest-me-not tone.

"Yes, ma'am," Isobel replied meekly, grinning. "I should have known you're a decorator as well as a seamstress."

"More of a decorator than a seamstress," I confessed, pressing a spot on my thumb that I had pricked some days ago during Isobel's initial fitting.

Isobel's eyes had been drawn back to the tea room. _Come here_, she ordered with a start, indicating that I should follow her. She all but raced into the tea room, and I nearly tripped over her when she stopped abruptly in the doorway.

"Look at her," Isobel breathed. "I shouldn't have brushed you off like that," she said contritely to the empty chair at a small, abandoned mahogany table. "_Thank you for going to all the trouble_!"

"Isobel, what-"

She cut me off by removing her pendant and quickly looping it around my neck. She slid her hand hurriedly over my neckline until she found my own. She aligned the two amulets with trembling fingers. When she let go, the room spun briefly and went dark. I staggered against the wall, supported only by her arm about my shoulders.

You must open your eyes, Katrina. Nothing has changed.

"Nothing?" I whispered incredulously, for the room _was_ in fact altered. Gauzy lace curtains fluttered from windows that were bare and dusty mere moments ago. The carpet was still threadbare, but the mahogany table was polished and free of cracks. A child's tea tray adorned the center, each piece of white bone china painted in blue with eerily familiar thematic scenes. Shepherds..._windmills_...

"Would thou like some?" asked the child sitting in the chair, a dark-haired girl of seven or eight with luminescent green eyes. Her dress was quaint and simple, a white winged bonnet and a rose-colored dress of a cut that I realized had not been worn for decades. She smiled at us, offering an empty teacup to whoever would take it.

"Yes," Isobel said politely, closing the distance between us and the girl. She took the cup and pretended to sip. "It's delicious. This is the loveliest housebreaking I've ever attended."

"Thank ye, mistress," the girl said shyly, wrapping her delicate fingers about a second cup. She looked at me uncertainly, and I realized that my dumbfounded look probably didn't give her the best impression. "Dost thou like tea?" she asked me hesitantly.

"Yes," I said faintly, stepping up beside Isobel. I reached out hesitantly, taking the cup from the child's hand. It felt cool, utterly _real._ As she drew her hand away, her tiny index finger grazed the tip of my thumb, gliding right through it.

"Incredible," I whispered.

"Ah, ah! How can ye say that? Ye must try it!" the girl scolded playfully.

I raised the cup to my lips. "_Now_ I can say that. It's wonderful!"

"Aye," the girl said, satisfied. She took an airy sip from her own cup. "To ye both, and the boys in there. Though I do not think the menfolk care 'bout tea," she giggled.

Isobel had a curious look on her face. "Is this your tea set?" she asked slowly, as if uncertain of how to approach what she wanted to know. "Did you bring it here?"

"Oh, no," the girl said simply, "pouring" herself some more tea. "I found it in the attic."

"What's your name?" I asked timidly.

"Gabriela. And I know ye two be Isobel and Katrina!" she said proudly.

My jaw dropped, but I quickly resolved the motion into an incredulous, "How-?"

When we were here, the other day. She heard us talking to each other. They're very resourceful, Katrina.

Gabriela was oblivious of my disbelief. She narrowed her lovely eyes mischievously. "Do ye want to see what else I found in the attic?"

"Of course we do," Isobel said with delight.

"Nay, I meant to ask Katrina," Gabriela said matter-of-factly. "I think she be much more interested in what I found than ye.... Not that I be insulting ye, mistress."

"Not at all," Isobel said kindly. "But I still would like to see it, too, if it's not a secret."

"Nay, it be no secret!" Gabriela said excitedly, rising from her chair. "If ye listened, ye know," she informed us, rummaging in a small wooden box at the foot of her chair. "Ah, here it be!"

Gabriela removed something from the box. It was wrapped in some sort of blue handkerchief. She came toward me with a look of sudden trepidation.

"It be a gift for ye," Gabriela explained gravely. "And ye mustn't be afraid of it, please!"

"N-No," I said, my lips suddenly unable to move in proper unison. "I shan't be."

"Ye promised," Gabriela said trustingly, placing it in my outstretched hand. "Ye _promised._"

"Yes," I whispered, nearly dropping it as my hand closed around the soft fabric bundle.

_Silk!_

"I promised...."

It fell open fluidly, secured by nothing. A small cloth doll with a stitched face and fine dark thread for hair lay nestled in the fabric.

My fingers, though immobile, closed around it as if of their own accord, in direct contradiction of my words. "I- I couldn't take it from-"

"Ye promised," Gabriela repeated. "And I be not much for dolls. I thought ye would like it."

"I... Oh, I do... It's just-"

"Ye missed it all this time. Ye had her once and ye will have her now," Gabriela said, smiling. "Ye had teacups like these, too."

Isobel was looking at me with tears in her eyes. "Oh, heavens," she said softly, and pursed her lips as quickly as she had spoken.

_I remember!_

"Remember what, Isobel?" I asked, my own eyes beginning to sting.

"If ye listened, ye know," Isobel echoed, much to Gabriela's satisfaction.

"I like ye," she said warmly to Isobel. "Ye listened. Ah, I like ye, too," she reassured me, reaching forward with a pale hand that passed right through my arm. "Come back, will ye?"

"Often," I whispered, shivering. "I'm glad to have met you, Gabriela."

"Aye, and ye," the girl said affably. "Ah, but ye be cold," she said sympathetically. "I be able to help that."

I had no sooner blinked than she vanished.

"Isobel..." I said weakly, leaning against the wall a second time.

"Here," she offered quickly, reclaiming her pendant.

The room seemed to flicker, come more sharply into focus. The windows were as bare and dusty as ever, and the table was in its former state of disrepair. But upon it sat a dust-coated child's tea set, its various pieces cracked and missing paint. In my right hand, I held a badly chipped teacup. In my left, I held a ragged piece of blue silk, in which rested a doll wearing a thin, frayed yellow dress and missing one of its brown button eyes.

"What just happened?" I demanded, wondering at the lack of disorientation I felt.

Isobel calmly took the teacup from me and placed it back on the table along with her own. She took my face gently in her hands.

"It would take too long to explain. Besides," she added honestly, kissing my forehead, "I'm not entirely certain what happens, and I'm the one who lives with it."

"Would you two quit playing around in there and come give us a hand?" called Christopher, ever impatient.

"We could use it," David added sarcastically. "It _is_ hard to play Catch the Knickknacks with only two people."

"_Christopher_!" Isobel yelled, leaving me alone in the empty, sun-filled tea room. I studied the doll's incomplete but somehow expectant features.

_You promised._

"Yes," I said quietly, smiling even without a fair certainty of what I was smiling about. "I did."


End file.
